Fair Trade Events
Rally to Stop the Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Wednesday, May 7 * 11:30 am
Outside Congresswoman Hooley's West Linn Office
21570 Willamette Drive * West Linn, OR
The Bush administration and corporate lobbyists continue pushing Congress to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement -- a NAFTA-style trade deal that ignores Colombia’s atrocious human rights record and that will undoubtedly cost Oregon jobs. Despite successfully blocking it from being forced to a vote under "Fast Track," there is increasingly talk of a deal that could allow it to reach the floor this year. Opposing the Colombia trade agreement should be a no brainer, but Congresswoman Hooley remains "undecided."
Women Waging Peace in Colombia
A Speaking Tour with Maria Ruth Sanabria
April 28: Portland State University, Smith Memorial Union, Room 238, 2:00 pm, Portland.
April 28: Portland Mennonite Church, 1312 SE 35th Ave, 7:00 pm, Portland.
April 29: University of Oregon, Room TBA, 7:00 pm, Eugene.
April 30: Oregon State University, Waldo Hall 240, 12:00 noon, Corvallis.
May 1: Bethel United Church of Christ, 480 E. Jewett Blvd, 7:00 pm, White Salmon.
As a founder of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Arauca, Maria Ruth Sanabria has been an outspoken advocate for human rights in Colombia, and a first-hand witness to the ongoing human rights violations and extreme violence in her country. Her first husband was assassinated because of his involvement with the Patriotic Union, a political party which posed a challange to the Colombian government. She herself was elected to the Arauquita municipal council on an opposition party ticket in October 2007. On January 26th of this year, as she was traveling with the mayor and other council members, her caravan was attacked by guerillas and four policie escorts were killed.
Maria Ruch is accompanied by Scott Nicholson, who has been in Arauca since July 2006 documenting human rights abuses. The presentation will include many of his photos.
Free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, Witness for Peace Northwest, the Montana Human Rights Network and others. For more info, contact Witness for Peace at (503) 287-7847.
Past Event: Portland Assembly on Free Trade and Job Loss
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Portland Community College - Cascade Campus
Allan Brannan was one of hundreds to lose his job at the Georgia-Pacific paper mill in Camas, Washington last year. Today, Brannan works as a Peer Outreach Counselor for others who have lost their jobs due to international trade.
On the evening of July 19, Brannan and displaced workers from a wide range of industries participated in a forum on free trade and job loss organized by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign. Held at Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus, they discussed impacts that free trade agreements are having on communities in the Portland metro area, and the opportunities available to fight back.
“When I was hired at the mill, I thought I had hit the lottery of jobs. I had a family-wage job with good benefits. I thought I was going to retire there,” Brannan said at the forum. “Being a Peer Advocate is the hardest job I’ve ever had. I often have to respond to former co-workers saying things like, ‘My wife thinks I’m a loser.’ ‘How can I afford health insurance for my family?’ ‘I’m going to be evicted.’ … There are very few opportunities for me or my co-workers to recover.”
The job loss experienced at the Camas mill, and countless other workplaces throughout the United States, is the direct result of free trade policies that make it easy for large corporations to relocate jobs abroad, where labor and environmental standards are much, much weaker. Even those companies that would like to keep production in the U.S. face difficulties when forced to compete with low-cost foreign imports.
“NAFTA affects every one in the United States who wants the quality of life of our parents before us. The cream of Middle America is being skimmed off. We have been asleep and in the dark for too long,” said Victor Pierce, a current employee at Portland’s Freightliner Truck Plant, worried that his job may soon be sent to Mexico. More than 800 jobs at the Freightliner Portland Truck Plant have already been shipped abroad this year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
“Healthy economies are supposed to include healthy standards of living and have basic labor standards,” Brannan said. “The countries that the U.S. is entering into trade agreements with often lag centuries behind when it comes to labor rights… Many of our trade agreements include environmental clauses, but they are so thoroughly ignored and unenforced that one wonders why they even bother including them.”
Many participants in the event had already lost one or more jobs to offshoring, and spoke of the difficulties finding family-wage replacement jobs. Others spoke about worries that their jobs could be offshored, and about the downward pressure on wages that offshoring creates across all sectors of the economy.
“High tech is often presented as a field where displaced workers can find a six-figure salary with minimal training,” said Mitch Besser, a high-tech worker with a Masters in Software Design and Development and more than 20 years of experience in the sector. “If you work in high-tech industries it is extremely likely you will be threatened with having your job sent overseas. Companies across the board are looking globally for the cheapest sources of labor they can find.”
One of the major messages highlighted by event organizers is that the United States is now at a crossroads when it comes to trade policy. On July 1, Fast Track trade promotion authority expired. For years, Fast Track rushed free trade agreements through Congress by eliminating ordinary committee review, amendment and debate procedures. This trade policymaking mechanism, first cooked up by the Nixon administration, was responsible for trade pacts like NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO and favored trade relations with China.
“With Fast Track’s death, future NAFTA-style trade deals will be nearly impossible to negotiate and pass through Congress,” said Arthur Stamoulis, director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign. “Unfortunately, the Bush administration signed four new free trade agreements just before Fast Track expired.”
These new pacts with Peru, Colombia, Panama and Korea could come up for a vote in Congress as early as September. It is crucial that people contact their Members of Congress and demand they vote no on these trade agreements, Stamoulis said. If these deals are defeated, it should spell the end of NAFTA-style trade agreements once-and-for-all. Without Fast Track, the Free Traders won’t be able to negotiate free trade pacts any more.
But if these deals pass -- and especially if they pass by a wide margin -- that will send a signal that business elites can continue slipping free trade agreements past the American people. It could give them the momentum needed to get Fast Track renewed, and that would be a disaster for working people in the United States and around the world.
“This is the best chance we’ve had in well over a decade to shape how international trade will be conducted,” said Stamoulis. “You can be sure the Free Traders are lobbying hard for their side. We need to stand up for what we believe in.”
Past Event: THERE GO OUR JOBS!
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Portland Federal Building
Thank you to the more than 200 people who attended this rally! Speakers included Freightliner workers and Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO President.
Portland is the home of Freightliner Trucks. They have been built in Portland for more than 50 years. Some production workers are 2nd and 3rd generation Freightliner employees. These have been family-wage union jobs since the 1940’s. Now Freightliner will stop making the Freightliner brand here and is permanently laying off 800 union workers, with most of their jobs going to Mexico. This is the second major layoff at Freightliner to qualify for Trade Act assistance, because the Labor Department certified the jobs were going to Mexico. In 1999 there were 2600 IAM (Machinists Union) jobs at Freightliner, and now only 650 will be left.
Free trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO (all of which were approved under "Fast Track" trade promotion authority) make it easier for companies like Freightliner to ship Oregon jobs out of the country—yet Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith continue to support Fast Track and NAFTA-style trade deals. 
Join recently laid-off Freightliner workers and others in telling our elected officials that giving away Oregon jobs is something we take seriously. Let’s stand up and say NO to the expansion of Fast Track and NAFTA-style trade pacts.
How Government Policies Lead to Local Job Loss
• The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and similar trade policies enable companies to ship Oregon jobs to foreign countries with dismal labor standards and then import products back into the United States for sale to U.S. consumers.
• 68,000 Oregon jobs have already been lost due to these NAFTA-style trade policies—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg if these policies continue to expand.
• NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO and other bad trade pacts were approved under a policymaking procedure known as "Fast Track," which eliminates ordinary Congressional review, mark-up and oversight of trade agreements, while giving large corporations special access to trade negotiators.
• Since Fast Track was cooked up by the Nixon administration in 1974, real hourly wages for the average American worker have only increased by 5 cents—despite an almost doubling in worker productivity. The offshoring of jobs has created downward pressure on wages across all sectors of the workforce.
• Fast Track expires this summer and can only be renewed with Congressional approval. If Fast Track is stopped, future NAFTA-style trade deals are dead in the water. If Fast Track is extended, hundreds of thousands of additional Oregon jobs will be put at risk of offshoring. Now is the time to speak out!
• Call Senator Ron Wyden at 503-326-7525 and Senator Gordon Smith at 503-326-3386 and tell them you oppose Fast Track renewal.
Sponsors:
International Association of Machinists Local Lodge 1005
Teamsters Local 305
Painters Local 1094
SEIU Local 49
Oregon Fair Trade Campaign
Portland Jobs With Justice
Cross Border Labor Organizing Council (CBLOC)
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 8
Northwest Oregon Labor Council
Past Event: The Hermiston Assembly on Free Trade and Job Loss
Read about our recent Hermiston event in this cover story from the East Oregonian:
Effort seeks to prevent outsourcing, job losses
By Dean Brickey
of the East Oregonian
Kari Koch of Portland, the campaign’s program director, said the time is ripe to get elected officials’ attention. She encouraged the displaced employees to spread the message that our-sourcing employment to other countries is bad for American workers.
“A lot of people got elected into office in November who are with us on this issues,” Koch said. “It’s our chance to get fair trade policies implemented.”
She also circulated a petition, which most signed, that demands elected officials stand up for fair trade. She said national policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free trade Agreement (CAFTA) have damaged the U.S. economy. That has occurred because American workers have lost their jobs to workers in other countries, resulting in a lower standard of living for those displaced workers and more lower-quality imported goods on America’s store shelves.
Kile, who works as a Union Pacific electrician, said she’s one of the few lucky ones who benefited from training after losing her Simplot job.
“I’ve seen whole families destroyed by this because this was their whole income,” she said. “It’s sad and it’s despicable the way we got thrown out on the street.”
Jason Weyand of Pendleton, representing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said a plant close like Simplot’s affects more than the workers, it results in a loss of tax revenue, which translates to government job cutbacks and a loss of public services.
“That’s ironic, because they’re needed more,” he said. “It’s a bad time to start losing those positions.”
Weyand also said a plant closure often pushes down wages at neighboring industries because as the demand for jobs increases, employers can hire workers for less.
“Free trade is damaging all professions,” he said.
Manuel Gutierrez, a Hermiston city councilman, said Simplot had a $15 million payroll in Hermiston, and the plant’s closure had a domino effect in the community.
Speaking in English and Spanish, he encouraged those in the crowd who were not U.S. citizens to obtain their citizenship so they can vote.