CLEVELAND, July 25 — Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are asked to call the House of Representatives and urge their Representative to oppose CAFTA–the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement.
CAFTA would extend NAFTA’s disastrous job loss, workers’ rights abuses and environmental damage throughout Central America.
Tell your representative:
“I strongly urge you to oppose CAFTA. CAFTA is based on the failed NAFTA and will expand NAFTA’s legacy of lost jobs, low wages and trampled workers’ rights to six more countries.”
Just like NAFTA, CAFTA does not include meaningful protections of workers’ rights–but it gives trade breaks to countries that violate workers’ rights. Highlight these points when you call your representative’s office:
* Under NAFTA and other failed U.S. trade policies, the U.S. trade deficit reached a record $600 billion last year as American companies relocated to take advantage of lower wages, weaker worker and environmental protections and improved access to the U.S. market. Even companies that didn’t destroy jobs used the threat of leaving the United States to break union organizing drives and win concessions at the bargaining table.
* The NAFTA-related trade deficit cost U.S. workers nearly 900,000 net jobs through 2002–and the trade deficit only has grown since then, despite predictions by NAFTA supporters in the 1990s that the agreement would generate trade surpluses for another 15 years.
We can’t afford another NAFTA. Please call your representative now and urge him or her to oppose CAFTA.
Your U.S. representative needs to hear from you now. Urge him or
her to oppose CAFTA by calling this toll-free number: (800) 718-1008.