http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbc ... /506270326

Monday, June 27, 2005

CAFTA: 'sweatshop labor'

The proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed by President Bush on May 28, 2004. A year later the Bush administration still has not brought it to a vote but plans to by early July. The House and Senate began hearings in April, and the vote has been expected to fall along partisan lines with only a few Democrats in the House supporting it and a few Republicans from sugar- and textile-producing states opposing it. It is clear from the debate thus far that this vote will be a referendum on the success and failures of NAFTA.

CAFTA has already been ratified by El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras despite huge protests and police violence. It is evident that the people of Central America know that CAFTA, like its predecessor NAFTA, will increase the divide between the rich and the poor, making life more difficult for the majority of workers. The maquiladoras that have opened because of NAFTA along the U.S.-Mexican border have become a stark contrast to the high-wage manufacturing jobs lost in the United States. With U.S. companies taking advantage of sweatshop labor in a "race to the bottom" for the lowest wages, undocumented immigration to the United States increases, in part due to the actions of these multinational corporations.

As U.S. companies ask, "How low can we go in the pursuit of profits?" when will the American people ask, "How much longer are we going to allow this to happen?"