From: rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador)
Subject: Jesse Jackson on Free Trade
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:12:07 GMT

DERAIL THE FAST TRACK

by Jesse Jackson

(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

No smart U.S. politician wants to be labeled a "protectionist."  For most
economists and editorialists, free trade is an article of faith.  To
question the free trade agreement that President Bush is negotiating with
Mexico, for example, is to risk editorial purgatory.  Not surprisingly,
the Congress, Gov. Bill Clinton and the President all lined up to favor a
"fast track" for negotiations with Mexico, prohibiting Congress from
amending the accord.
But for Irma Duenez, free trade is about life, not politics.
When the Mallory Capacitor Company opened up shop in the Mexican border
town of Matamoros, she and several hundred other Mexican women rushed to
work for less than $1 an hour.
She washed capacitors with toxic chemicals wearing only rubbers gloves
for protection.  She knew the chemicals were powerful, for women fainted
regularly from the fumes.  Then her son was born with something terribly
wrong.  Now 17, Francisco never walked until he was 12, and he still must
be cared for like an infant.  He is a "Mallory Child," one of many with
deformed limbs and learning disabilities born to the women who worked
there.
The Mallory Co. is one of nearly 2,000 assembly plants--called 
maquiladoras--that have operated in a free trade zone on the Mexican
border, employing about 500,000 workers.  The practice of the 
maquiladora plants directly contradicts the faith of the purblind free
traders.
Free trade is supposed to produce higher wages in Mexico (and presumably
lower ones in the United States) as labor markets level out over time.
But in the maquiladora plants, wages have been going down, not up.  The
Washington, D. C.-based Economic Policy Institute found that over the
past 10 years, labor productivity in Mexican automobile factories has
increased dramatically, yet real wages have fallen 30 percent.
EPI estimates that over the next 10 years, a free trade agreement could
rob the United States of about 550,000 high-wage jobs.  That is one
reason why Ross Perot opposes the fast track on trade negotiations.
Perot says he talked with leading U.S. and Japanese manufacturers and
all agreed that they would build their next plants in Mexico if the 
trade agreement went through.  Perot predicts the resulting loss of jobs
and lowering of U.S. wages will make repaying our debt even more burden-
some.  "Somebody hasn't thought this thing through," he argues.
Mexico also attracts U.S. comapnies because of lax environmental, health
and safety standards.  When California passed protections against the
poisonous fumes of paint solvents, furniture manufacturers moved South--
costing Southern California more than 63,000 jobs and an estimated
$1.3 billion.  Thus, while Los Angeles burns, Mexico smokes, as
maquiladora furniture plants produce a poisonous smog, which the wind
blows back into San Diego.
Mexico has decent environmental laws but neither the power nor the will
to enforce them.  According to the Mexican environmental agency, more
than 80 percent of the foreign-owned maquiladora companies failed to show
proper disposal of toxic wastes.  According to the American Medical
Association, every day 12.2 million gallons of raw sewage are dumped
into the Tijuana River and 20 million gallons into the New River, 
producing high rates of hepatitis and gastro-intestinal diseases in towns
on both sides of the border.  That is a major reason why Ralph Nader's
Public Citizen organization has lobbied hard agains the fast track.
Maquiladora companies have also been attracted by Mexico's subservient
union movement.  In Orwelian fashion, Mexico's government can declare
unions and strikes "nonexistent."  With the rights to strike and organize 
limited, independent unions are often crushed.
Although Mexican law prohibits child labor, the Mexico City Assembly 
recently reported that 5 million to 10 million children are employed
illegally, often in unsafe jobs.  Women constitute 68 percent of the
work force, earn less than $1 an hour and routinely face sexual harassment.
That is a major reason why United Auto Workers President Owen Bieber
opposes the fast track approach.
Many Mexican leaders fear the agreement could be a disaster for the Mexican
people.  U.S. agribusiness will force [Mexican] family farmers from the land.
Those displaced will drive down wages and drive up forced emigration.
Cities will grow more unlivable.  Popular opposition will be squelched by 
the systematic electoral fraud that has characterized recent Mexican
elections.  That is why Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who had the last Mexican
presidential election stolen from him, opposes the fast track.
When people as diverse as Perot and Nader, Bieber and Cardenas agree,
then surely we ought to rethink what we are doing.  There is no rush.
We will be neighbors with Mexico for a long time.  We need a deliberate
track, one that works out a mutually beneficial agreement that will lift
wages and conditions there rather than lower them here.  It is time to
get off the fast track.