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New York City People's Referendum on
Free Trade PO Box 344, New York, NY 10108 Phone: (347) 905-7334 * Fax:
Email: info@tradejustice.net Web: www.tradejustice.net Dear Members of Congress We write asking for your
commitment to oppose the Peru and the Panama Free Trade Agreements, thought to be planned for introduction into Congress later
in this session. We are deeply concerned
that the much heralded changes to the agreements to protect labor rights and
the environment, while included in the main body of the agreements, lack
adequate enforcement mechanisms. And we do not trust
the current Administration to press for meaningful enforcement of these
provisions even if they are passed into law by the legislatures of the
countries involved. In November, 2006, the voters
spoke clearly on the issues of trust and trade in turning over control of
Congress to the Democratic Party. U.S. incomes are stagnant
and U.S. jobs are being lost to subsidized imports. We feel that workers here can
compete if there is a level playing field. That's why
we feel that truly enforceable labor provisions, provisions meeting
International Labor Organization standards, are a necessary component of any
trade agreement approved by Congress. The trade in illegal
narcotics continues to be a scourge in our countries. Subsidized US farm goods
will, as we have seen in the case of Mexico under NAFTA, force small farmers
from their lands or into increased dependence on illegal crops. The increased migration of
undocumented workers to the United States is largely attributable to US trade
agreements. As we have seen with NAFTA, workers have been forced off the land
and into low paying jobs [the maquiladoras] and then
as those jobs move to the even lower wage country of China, the displaced
workers move north into our labor market. Fences are no solution. Only jobs
with dignity and a living wage will provide the social stability needed for
regional security. Though the renegotiated
text improves some of the provisions that were designed
to bolster profits of pharmaceutical corporations, the intellectual property
rights section of the agreements still would impose unnecessary restrictions on
access to life-saving medications and represent a threat to public health. Despite new language
addressing mahogany exports, the revised Peru agreement also falls far short in
addressing environmental concerns. Given Peru's track record
of ignoring its own environmental laws, putting new laws on the books without
providing additional resources for enforcement or mechanism for international
oversight ensures that Peru will ignore these laws as readily as it does its
ILO commitments. It is telling that only a
handful of Democratic Congressional Representatives had any participation in
negotiating the new trade deal announced on May 10th,
2007, and there was no involvement of the public at large. The fact that no
union, environmental, consumer, or small business groups support the deal,
while Big Business does, is further evidence that the deal is in conflict with
the public interest. We therefore urge you to
speak out in opposition to this agreement and urge others to do so. The following New York City
based groups have authorized the use of their names in support of opposition to
the Colombia, Korea, Panama, and Peru Free Trade Agreements. Committee for Social
Justice in Colombia Health Global Access
Project (HealthGAP) Reply to:
NYC Peoples Referendum on Trade, Ltm8@columbia.edu; 718-505-9762. |