Marching to Miami: Stop the FTAA!

October 24, 20033:21 AM CST

PITTSBURGH – As far as working families are concerned, nothing good came out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Economic Policy Institute estimates that NAFTA has cost 765,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1993.

“The fact is,” says Jim English, secretary-treasurer of the United Steelworkers of America union (USWA), “NAFTA has been a disaster for workers on both sides of the border. It has reduced wages by 22 percent for Mexican workers and at the same time it has cut by more than half the number of successful organizing campaigns in this country when employers threaten workers with moving their plants out of the country.”

On Nov. 20, trade ministers from 34 Western Hemisphere countries will meet in Miamito create the world’s largest “free trade” zone under the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) pact – “NAFTA on steroids,” according to steelworkers.

In September a caravan departed from Seattle for Miami. On board are union leaders, workers, environmentalists, clergy, farmers and human rights activists. The March to Miami has a single message, “Stop the FTAA,” and it is taking that story directly to the American people, especially in the politically volatile and vote-rich states of the West, Mid-West and South: Spokane, Wash.; Coeur d’Alene and Kellogg, Idaho; Missoula and Billings, Mont.; Bismarck, N.D.; East Grand Forks, Eveleth and St. Paul, Minn.; and on to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois where riders held rallies and dialogued with a mosaic of heartland families.

Under the umbrella of the