Since passage of the
job-killing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1993 and
1994, more than 600,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs have been
destroyed. The Big Business program of closing down good
manufacturing jobs here in the U.S. in favor of a global
network of sweatshops continues without let-up.
We are now faced with possible
Congressional passage of the "NAFTA for Africa" bill
(HR.434/S.666), a scheme cooked up by Corporate America to
destroy an additional hundreds of thousands of jobs. This
disgraceful legislation was introduced by President Clinton in
early 1998, primarily to divert attention from his personal
scandals. It passed the House of Representatives in March of
1998 by a 233-186 margin. A total of 141 Republicans and 92
Democrats voted for this job-killing bill. The Senate did not
consider the bill in 1998. Two other job-killing trade bills
are also on the horizon, the "Caribbean Basin
Initiative" bill (HR.984), and another push for
"Fast Track". These schemes must be defeated as
well.
We have to move fast. Please print and distribute
our on-line leaflet ASAP
(you'll need to use legal-size paper). It is important
that your UE Local leadership and as many rank-and-file
members as
possible contact their members of Congress with our message.
We CAN stop these attacks — but only if we join with the rest
of the labor movement and tell Congress to reject this
destructive legislation. Please contact the UE Washington
Office (703) 684-3123 if you need more information.
Robert L. Clark
General Secretary-Treasurer
