No CAFTA

The U.S. House must vote on CAFTA by July 28. CAFTA, the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, is another job-killing trade deal patterned after its “twin brother,” NAFTA. Like NAFTA, CAFTA would hurt workers in the United States and fail to lift our Central American and Dominican brothers and sisters out of poverty.


Please tell your representative to stop CAFTA. Send the following message now.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Save Jobs. Stop CAFTA.

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I urge you to oppose the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

CAFTA is another flawed trade deal that will sell out America's jobs--and it will do nothing to lift Central American and Dominican workers out of poverty. U.S. policy should not support exploitation, and companies in countries where workers are exploited compete with an unfair and immoral advantage.

Reports commissioned by the Labor Department, but later suppressed, have found grave dangers to workers' rights in CAFTA countries, saying "labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent." We should not give trade breaks to countries that abuse workers' rights.

CAFTA is just like NAFTA--a failure. NAFTA has cost the United States close to 1 million real and potential jobs and has not reduced poverty or inequality in Mexico.

Flawed trade deals like CAFTA have devastated our communities, as companies close or export their jobs and millions of skilled workers cannot find jobs that pay living wages. Right now we are losing jobs because of bad trade deals in every sector that is open to trade competition, from lumber and aerospace to clothing. CAFTA won't help--CAFTA will make it worse.

You have the opportunity to take a stand for workers in our state and in Central America and the Dominican Republic. Please oppose CAFTA. I am counting on you.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
July 19, 2005


Background Information

What You Need to Know About CAFTA

If we’re going to save jobs and stop CAFTA—the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement—we’ve got to act now. President George W. Bush has moved CAFTA (also called “NAFTA’s twin brother”) to Congress, and our representatives need to hear from us now.

There probably are 1,000 good reasons to stop CAFTA. They all boil down to jobs. Let’s look at 10 good ones:

  1. CAFTA would give new protections to U.S. multinational companies for operating outside the country. Like companies need more incentives to move jobs!
  2. At the same time, CAFTA would reduce protections for workers—here and in Central America.
  3. That one-two punch combines to make goods produced in other countries cheaper and less risky for the makers—and to make it impossible for U.S. manufacturers to compete.
  4. When we can’t compete with foreign goods, we import more and our trade deficit soars. It happened with NAFTA. Our trade deficit with NAFTA countries is 12 times bigger than before NAFTA—it shot up from $9 billion in 1993 to $111 billion last year.
  5. When imports and our trade deficit grow, we lose jobs. We lost an estimated 900,000 net jobs to NAFTA.
  6. You can’t believe what the trade-at-all-costs folks are saying about CAFTA. When you hear claims that CAFTA will create U.S. jobs and improve living standards in Central America, remember this: That’s what they said about NAFTA.
  7. CAFTA would hurt, not help, Central American and Dominican workers. Look at NAFTA’s legacy: Displaced Mexican subsistence farmers were turned into unemployed masses, far, far outnumbering the few jobs created. Workers who find jobs manufacturing goods for export are out of luck. Overall, real wages for Mexican workers actually have fallen since NAFTA.
  8. CAFTA would hurt workers who don’t lose jobs, too. It would make it easier for employers to fight workers struggling to form unions by threatening to close down. NAFTA did: By the late 1990s, employers threatened to shut down if workers formed a union in 51 percent of union representation election campaigns—and 71 percent in manufacturing. That’s a whopping increase from the 29 percent in the mid-1980s.
  9. In addition—increased trade lowers wages for low-skilled U.S. workers. Real wages for most U.S. men actually have fallen since NAFTA.
  10. U.S. workers already are hurting from anti-worker trade policies. Now is the time to do trade the right way—by rewarding work and respecting workers here and in other countries.

Please take a minute now to share this information with your members of Congress and urge them to stop CAFTA.

For more information on CAFTA:

Workers and their allies are fighting to stop the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), signed May 28, 2004, by the United States, five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.

CAFTA, which does not include protections for workers' right to form a union or safe work conditions, is the first bilateral or regional agreement the Bush administration has pushed since fierce opposition from workers in North America and South America and their community allies stymied trade ministers in November 2003 from consolidating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). If approved, FTAA would eliminate tariffs from 34 countries with a population of more than 800 million. Negotiations on FTAA were suspended for most of 2004 and trade ministers have not met this year to discuss it. 

At the same time, the Bush White House is pushing CAFTA and has made it the top trade priority. "The Bush administration has negotiated an agreement that will utterly fail to create good jobs at home or promote equitable and sustainable development in Central America," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said. "This agreement will leave workers, family farmers, the environment and communities more vulnerable, while enriching and empowering corporate elites."

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, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.

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