Paper prepared for the Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference: IV
December 8 and 9, 2007, Tijuana, Mexico

The program for FTAA being promoted by Washington grew out of NAFTA. The trade union central Canadian Labour Congress, representing over 3 million workers across Canada puts forward nine reasons to oppose the FTAA:

1) The FTAA strengthens the hand of corporations as they can move, with no constraints, to low cost locations, and impose their conditions on government, labour and communities;

2) The FTAA negotiators are unaccountable to the public, parliamentarians are also excluded;

3) The FTAA puts investors’ rights first, giving multinationals the power to sue national governments for passing laws that negatively affect profits;

4) The FTAA says nothing about labour, civil, political, social and cultural rights of citizens:

5) The FTAA sees public services (public education, health care and water services) as big business opportunities rather than as basic human needs;

6) The FTAA is weighted to benefit the larger industrialized economies leaving the poorer developing countries to struggle to pay off massive, unmanageable debts;

7) The FTAA enforces structural adjustments, ineffective policies which damage economies and worsen poverty by diverting resources to debt repayments rather than investing in vital areas of environment, health care or education;

8) The FTAA encourages “factory farming” as well as other resource extraction practices that worsen ecological damage;

9) The FTAA jeopardizes sustainable agriculture and food security throughout the Americas by exposing small farmers to unfair competition from subsidized exports.

The Vancouver, Canada-based social organisation called No One Is Illegal states that “since the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement [FTA- the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and USA – the precursor of NAFTA] in 1985, wage growth in Canada has been almost flat and the majority of jobs are un-unionized and part time. Since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, the bottom 20% of Canadian families saw their incomes fall by 7.6%, while the top 20% saw their incomes rise by 16.8%. In 2004, the average earnings of the richest 10% of Canada’s families raising children was 82 times that earned by the poorest 10% of Canada’s families. This is despite the fact that that most households are clocking in almost 200 hours more than nine years ago. Similarly in the US, according to Forbes Magazine, the largest employer is Wal-Mart, whose average wage is $7.50 per hour. In Mexico, the number of Mexicans living in severe poverty has grown by four million since NAFTA and the real value of the minimum wage has dropped by 23%.

The costs of environmental degradation have amounted to 10% of the annual GDP. With the rise in agribusiness, more than 50,000 Mexican farmers are expelled from their lands annually. Many of these 1.5 million displaced Mexican farmers have migrated to North America to work in low-paying sectors such as construction, agriculture and factories.”

There are many examples from Canada to illustrate what trade unions, social and political organisations are claiming. However, I would like to bring to your attention one issue which illustrates the negative impacts of NAFTA/FTAA on the working people and small farmers in the participating countries.

Since 1996 the Canadian government has operated the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP). This program was initiated in response to severe labour shortages experienced by big farm employers. Since the application of NAFTA in the 1990s the CSAWP has come in very handy for those profiting from the situation. NAFTA has devastated the economies of the south; national industries, particularly agriculture, have been destroyed. According to the Canadian-based coalition of labour, social activists and researchers, Justicia for Migrant Workers, most of the workers who participate in CSAWP are dispossessed or struggling small farmers from poorer rural regions that are forced to migrate for a living wage. Sending countries such as Mexico have more often than not easily complied with neoliberal restructuring despite its disastrous effects. For instance reform of Article 27 in the Mexican Constitution privatized ejido land that was protected as commonly held land among small farmers.

Laura Carlsen of the Americas Policy Program wrote on October 31, 2007 that “in the early nineties, when NAFTA was still but a gleam in the eye of presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and George Bush Sr., the atmosphere in Mexican political and business circles was positively euphoric. It was a time of major structural reforms in Mexico, and NAFTA was to be the crowning glory of Mexico’s modernization, its ticket into the First World. Proponents predicted that the agreement would be a win-win deal: consumers would get cheaper food, producers would become more efficient, and immigration would decrease as the developing economy of Mexico converged with the world’s economic superpower to the North. Fourteen years later, we see nearly the opposite. As trade between the two countries has grown, so have the huge gaps in how people live. Massive agricultural imports have displaced an estimated two million farmers, as subsidized grains from the United States take over their local and regional markets...”

Neilan Barnes, Professor at California State University at long Beach gave a Conference in Toronto at York University on November 15, 2007 on Canada-USA-Mexico Integration: Do Civil Society Transnational Networks lead to health Policy and Health Service convergence? Quoting from Immigration /Labor News, August 15, 2007, it was pointed out that “for some rural Mexicans, working in Canada is a viable alternative to the low pay of Mexico’s northern borderlands or the dangerous crossing into the United States...According to a Mexican congressional report, an estimated 15,000 Mexicans labor as agricultural guest workers for up to eight months stints in Canada. Now, the attractiveness of the Canadian option might be fading too...isolated workers lack access to the Canadian health system, worker’s compensation and interpreters...”

The number of migrant temporary farm workers coming to Canada has increased considerably. Around 20,000 workers mainly from Mexico but also from other countries in Central America and the Caribbean are brought to Canada every year. The terms of the working and living conditions are worked out through CSAWP in collaboration with the sending countries such as Mexico and representatives of the big Canadian farm owners. Migrant workers and their representatives are not invited to attend. Employers request workers through the Canadian governmental agencies. Migrant sending countries such as Mexico select and screen the workers. Workers and employers sign a contract that outlines respective rights and obligations that generally ranges between 3 to 8 months. Workers that win the approval of employers are `named’ and requested back on the farms. The Canadian-based organisation Justicia for Migrant Workers goes on to explain that “workers are sent home as soon as their contracts expire. They have to report back to their home countries with evaluation forms from their employers. A negative report can result in suspension from the program. Workers also have to report about the treatment they received from their Canadian employers. Most migrant farm workers prefer to provide a neutral report to avoid delays in being processed to return to work in Canada. Migrant workers face an array of issues that the CSAWP, the Canadian government and participating governments fail to address. First of all, migrant workers are painfully separated from their families and communities to make a living. They are often isolated in rural communities where life revolves solely around the farm. Language barriers, mobility problems and cultural differences manifesting themselves in outright racism segregate and exclude migrant workers from the rest of their host rural communities. Migrant workers perform rigorous and often dangerous rural labour that few Canadians choose to do. Many workers are reluctant to stand up for their rights since employers find it easier to send workers home (at their own expense) instead of dealing with their serious concerns. Fear and the structure of the CSAWP (i.e. lack of appeal mechanisms, high turn-over rate of migrant workers and lack of monitoring) silence the struggles of migrant workers. Some workers never return to the program due to mistreatment. Others attempt to relocate to other farms. But most of the time workers are not granted transfers because it requires approval from the employer in question and consulate liaison officers. Many workers remain silent out of fear from being expelled from the program. It is also important to note that some migrant workers claim to have positive work experiences in Canada.

However, in our numerous visits and outreach in migrant communities we repeatedly heard forceful phrases such as, `they treat us worse than animals!’ Migrant workers, mostly from the Caribbean, make references to slavery in explaining their situation in Canada...”

In this situation, the Canadian United Food and Commerce Workers Union (UFCW) representing 240,000 workers in Canada and their Support centers in the local rural areas are doing an excellent job in most difficult conditions to unionize and defend the rights of these workers. Here are just a few of the many injustices in provinces across Canada that the union has document in its latest 2006/2007 annual report by National President Wayne Hanley entitled The Status of Migrant farm Workers in Canada:

“Work Accident, Repatriation, Clarksburg, Ontario

While loading machinery onto a truck, the worker displaced two vertebrae. The doctor prescribed an operation but the worker was pressured to return to Mexico by both the employer and the [Mexican] consulate.

Breaking Contract, Mistreatment, Sickness, Prince Edward, Ontario

A worker at this farm reported that they did not have potable water and eight workers suffered itching skin, eye irritation, stomach aches, and diarrhoea. One worker was seriously ill as a result. The employer provides no facility to wash their clothes or pots for cooking and is aggressive and insulting toward them.

Anti-Union Reprisal, Slander, Québec

As of 2006, this worker had six years with the same employer. In the airport he informed our staff that the night before returning to Mexico, the employer requested that four of the workers sign a letter to renounce their wish to be represented by UFCW Canada. They refused and subsequently the employer wrote in their letter of recommendation that they had behaviour problems and did not request them back for 2007.

Retention of Documents, Violation of Contract, British Columbia

The employer demands piecework although the contract specifies workers will be paid by the hour, as reported by workers in 2007. The employer confiscated their documents, and did not provide beds, only sleeping bags. The Canadian workers at this farm must fill three boxes per day and they receive $50 per box; the Mexican workers are required to fill seven boxes per day at $17 per box.

The United Food and Commerce Workers Union (UFCW) Migrant Workers Support Centre staff is dedicated to helping migrant farm workers whenever and wherever they are able. UFCW staffs have made a difference to the lives of thousands of migrant workers. While the UFCW centres have had great successes in remedying many problems, the union is concerned for the many workers who have no access to the support centres. There are many issues that remain unreported because workers are either not able to contact the union centres, are unaware that that the support services exist, or fear being sent home (repatriation) if they speak out. When migrant workers raise issues of concern to their employer, they do so knowing they face the very real risk of being sent home under the CSAWP’s repatriation provisions. Under these provisions, workers can and are sent home by their employer, often with just a day or two’s notice, for any reason. This ability of employers to have workers repatriated for any reason is perhaps the most significant negative aspect of CSAWP. In essence, it provides a blanket of immunity for employers to treat workers as they choose, since any worker who tries to object can be immediately repatriated.

The 15 Recommendations to changes in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP) by the union are just and should be supported by unions in Canada and Mexico, the main countries involved. Here are some of these 15 recommendations by the UFCW union for changes to the CSAWP:

* Provide a transparent, impartial process of appeal, available to all workers, before any decision to repatriate is made, including the appointment of a representative from UFCW Canada to fully participate in this appeal process on behalf of the workers.

* Comply with the rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada and make it a condition of the CSAWP that provinces bringing migrant workers to Canada allow these workers the right to the freedom to associate and bargain collectively.

* Inspect all worker housing prior to and following their occupancy. Random inspections should also be mandated and occur regularly throughout the season, and employers who are found to be in non-compliance with standards for adequate housing be terminated from the CSAWP. Immediately ban the practice of housing workers above or adjacent to greenhouses in recognition of the obvious dangers associated with living in buildings housing chemicals, fertilizers, boilers, industrial fans and/or heaters.

* Immediately terminate from CSAWP any employer found to be holding the personal documents, particularly passports and health cards, of migrant workers. Amend the program to ensure that this is a direct contravention of the program whether the withholding of the documents is done by the employer or through the consulate.

* Recognize UFCW Canada as an equal partner in negotiations of the CSAWP agreement on behalf of migrant workers.

* Canada must not wait any longer to sign the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.”

The Quebec Union, the Féderation des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ [The Federation of Quebec Workers] in their Memoire presented September 6, 2007 to the Quebec provincial government Commission on the Future of the Agriculture and Food Producing Industry in Quebec included the UFCW union Annual Report, quoting in full the 15 recommendations of which several are cited above. The Quebec union central severely criticized the CSAWP and both the Canadian and Quebec governments. The union indicated that even though the issue is in the realm of the Canadian government’s responsibilities, the Quebec government Commission should take a stand on the unjust conditions of the migratory farm workers in Quebec.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) is a further step in the application of NAFTA. The SPP was made famous last summer during the secret meeting held in Montebello, Quebec, Canada between the leaders of the US, Canada and Mexico. One of the side positive effects of this is the constantly increasing collaborations between trade unions in Canada, the USA and Mexico. What is SPP?

Teresa Healy from the Canadian Labour Congress addressed the Canadian Federation of Students’ annual meeting, on May 26, 2007 on the following topic - The Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP]: Another Neo-Liberal threat to Democracy. She pointed out that “the SPP was established in 2005. Since the fight over NAFTA was such a `bruising battle’ as one U.S. official called it, there was no appetite for another fight with civil society, so the North American integration went underground.”

The Vancouver, Canada-based social movement nooneisillegal.org wrote that “the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was founded in March 2005 at a summit of the Heads of State of Canada, the US, and Mexico. SPP is not an official treaty; it is not an official law; rather, it is being presented as a vague `dialogue based on shared values’. Therefore it has been able to escape any public scrutiny and will never be debated in the House of Commons [Canada’s Parliament]... The SPP is a NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model [U.S.]. The founding premise of the SPP is that an agenda of economic free trade and national security will result in human prosperity. Yet we know that the so-called `prosperity’ of previous free trade agreements such as NAFTA have only brought corporate prosperity, with increasing rates of poverty and displacement for the majority of people....No item – not Canadian water, not Mexican oil, not American anti-dumping laws – is off the table; rather, contentious or intractable issues will simply require more time to ripen politically.” – Leaked Minutes of a 2004 meeting of the Task Force on the Future of North America. The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was launched as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in June 2006. It is the only formal advisory board to the SPP and is made up of 30 corporate leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with ten advisors from each of the SPP signatory states.

Minutes from a January 10, 2006 tri-national “Public-Private Sector Dialogue on the Security and Prosperity Partnership” reveal exactly why the NACC was created – to `engage substantively and pragmatically on trade and security issues without undue deference to political sensitivities.’ A September 13, 2006 story in [Canada’s] Maclean’s magazine describes NACC as a ‘cherry-picked group of executives who were whisked to Cancun in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and asked to come up with a plan for taking North American integration beyond NAFTA.’

I would like to present to you today one example of how the SPP operates and the very positive reaction of unions from Canada, USA and Mexico against the plan. The example is the use of water and other sources of energy.

While the secret Montebello meeting was taking place and protected by hundreds of police against demonstrators, on August 18, 2007, 70 representatives of energy sector workers’ unions and social movements from the three countries partnered with the following result:

A Joint Solidarity Statement, August 18, 2007 of the North American Energy sector workers meeting was adopted and entitled: For the democratic, national development of North America's energy resources

Close to 40 energy workers’ unions and social movements from the 3 countries were represented. The following is only a partial list.

Energy Workers’ Unions

• Union nacional de trabajadores de confianza de la industria petrolera (UNTCIP)

• Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME)

• Alianza nacional democratica de los trabajadores Petroleros (ANDTP)

• Sindicato único de trabajadores de industria nuclear (SUTIN)

• Comité nacional de la energía

• Frente autentico del trabajo (FAT)

• United Steelworkers (USW)

• All the main trade union centrals from Canada and Quebec participated as did the affiliates directly involved in the energy sector of the economy.

Networks and social movements

• Quebec Network on Continental Integration (RQIC)

• Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC)

• Common Frontiers - Canada

• Alliance for Responsible T