What You Need to Know About CAFTA:

Workers and their allies are fighting to stop the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), signed May 28, 2004, by the United States and six Central American countries. Although the Agreement has already been signed, it still needs a vote in Congress to be implemented.  The Bush administration wants a vote on CAFTA before the July 4 recess.

The Bill that President Bush plans to introduce would change U.S. laws to conform to the provisions of the trade agreement, implementing CAFTA.  Once the President introduces the Bill, it cannot be modified and it must come to a vote within 60 days in the House & 90 days in the Senate.  There can be no amendments even on the floor to reflect concerns voters have about the impact of CAFTA. It will just be an up or down vote. The Republican leadership in Congress will call for a vote as soon as they think they have the votes.

Since the Bill cannot be “marked-up”, or changed, in committee, the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees are holding “mock mark-ups" to allow their members to state their positions. Although these mock mark-ups cannot stop CAFTA, the symbolic impact of one of these committees voting no on CAFTA would be enormous.

If approved, CAFTA would eliminate tariffs from the United States, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It would extend to Central America the disastrous job loss and environmental damage caused by 10 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). U.S. workers lost 879,280 jobs and real wages in Mexico have fallen as a result of NAFTA in the past 10 years, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch has highlighted how workers in Central America are often denied such basic rights as the right to organize and bargain collectively. Yet, the Bush administration has refused to include workers' rights in CAFTA.

Act Now to Stop CAFTA!