| As a very productive and eventful
2007 comes to an end, I would like to highlight some of the important
work that the Campaign for Labor Rights has been involved in and
to look forward to the work that still needs to be done.
Our work is possible only because of your financial support.
At a time when all of us are feeling the effects of an economic
system that favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor and
working class, I ask you to please consider the importance of
CLR and the work we do.
Thanks to your support this past year I participated and in most
cases gave workshops or presentations in the following conferences
and meetings.
• US-Cuba-Venezuela-Mexico Labor conference in Tijuana,
Mexico.
• Korea Free Trade Agreement weeks of action in Washington,
DC and New York.
• Trade Strategy meeting of the Alliance for Responsible
Trade.
• Strategy meeting of the Stop-CAFTA Coalition.
• Latin America Solidarity Conference “Alternatives
to Empire” conference in Chicago.
• Sweat Free Communities/Alliance for Fair Food conference
at Columbia University.
• Child labor presentation to officials from Nepal, Pakistan
and India at the Mississippi Consortium on International Development.
• “Taming the Corporate Giant: A National Conference
on Corporate Accountability” in Washington, DC.
• Take Back America conference in Washington, DC.
• US Social Forum in Atlanta
• “Lessons from NAFTA: Building a New Fair Trade Agenda”
conference in Minneapolis.
• Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras Board meeting
in Mexico
• International Labor Forum including representatives from
Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Dominican Republic, Mexico,
and the US.
• American University Law School panel on NAFTA where I
debated a pro-NAFTA representative from the Peterson Institute
for International Economics.
• School of the Americas Watch vigil at Fort Benning, GA.
In addition, I met with a delegation of Colombian women who told
their inspirational stories of organizing in the midst of a conflict
where I was struck again by the courage and incredible power of
women organizing for labor justice in a country where labor organizing
is often a death sentence.
I also participated in a rally by Smithfield Hams workers and
supporters in Williamsburg, VA where more than 1,000 of us marched
to the shareholder meeting and presented the worker demands.
One interesting part of my work was to attend several right-wing
functions where I introduced a few uncomfortable facts into their
carefully crafted pro-Free Trade message. The Inter-American Dialogue
and the US Chamber of Commerce may not want me to attend their
future events.
This year Campaign for Labor Rights mobilized US activists in
support of workers organizing against sweatshop abuses in Mexico,
Thailand, Baltimore, MD, Immokalee, FL, India and Bangladesh.
More than 4,000 people subscribe to our email Labor Alerts and
respond with letters, phone calls and the occasional picket when
workers ask for CLR’s support.
Much of our recent work has been focused on mobilizing opposition
to the free trade agenda and educating the public on the effects
of neo-liberal policies. As part of the Stop CAFTA Coalition we
issued our second DR-CAFTA Monitoring Report, with chapters on
each of the countries involved in that trade pact.
This report highlighted the growing insecurity among workers,
the criminalization of the informal sector and the increase in
migration as a result of displacement. I encourage you to read
the report, which you can find at: http://lasolidarity.org/CAFTA_report/.
As more trade agreements are implemented we can expect to see
the effects documented in this report happening in other countries.
In addition, we sent a delegation from the U.S. to Costa Rica
in advance of that country’s historic referendum on whether
or not to join DR-CAFTA. The results of the vote were barely in
favor of joining, and there was ample evidence of fraud by the
pro-CAFTA forces as well as interference by the U.S. government.
Working with partners in Costa Rica we pressured international
organizations like the OAS and the UN to condemn the vote and
call for the decertification of the results. Just last week the
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights addressed
the negative impact of CAFTA on the people of Costa Rica.
As I write, Costa Ricans are preparing for a general strike to
protest attempts to privatize their electric and telecommunications
sectors. These state-owned enterprises have helped Costa Rica
achieve higher telephone coverage areas than any other country
in Central America, at rates that are also lower. Part of the
neo-liberal trade agenda is the selling off of public assets into
private hands. In many cases the assets are sold at a fraction
of their value and then resold for many times the purchase price.
The outcome of such actions is generally a decline in service
and a significant increase in price.
This month the US Congress approved the free trade agreement
with Peru, despite opposition from a wide-ranging coalition including
CLR. This agreement will result in tens of thousands of farmers
and indigenous people being thrown off their land, either to become
cheap labor, coca growers or migrants. It will dismantle much
of the social infrastructure in Peru, reducing access to education,
health care and medicines. In addition it will open the Amazon
to increased logging, mining and other resource extraction resulting
in the further degradation of the “world’s lungs.”
The Bush administration is now pressuring Congress to pass a
free trade agreement with Colombia, a country where union organizers
are murdered with impunity. Over the past 15 years more than 2,100
unionists have been murdered and to date there have been less
than 10 convictions. Top members of President Uribe’s administration
have been linked to the paramilitary death squads, resulting in
the arrest, dismissal or resignation of some two dozen government
officials.
Contrary to statements made by President Uribe, Colombia is still
the most dangerous place to be a union organizer. In 2006 more
than 70 unionists were murdered. Where is the logic in rewarding
a country that murders unionists with a so-called free trade agreement?
Please call your elected representatives and tell them you will
be watching closely how they vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Another trade agreement that will be coming up for a vote in
Congress in the near future is with South Korea. This free trade
agreement will be the largest, in economic terms, since the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And it will likely be as
harmful to Korea as NAFTA was to Mexico. As the Korean economy
has developed, small businesses and farmers have been hit especially
hard.
This will only intensify under the KOR-USFTA. Already we have
seen an epidemic of farmers committing suicide because they can
no longer support their families through farming. Union members
too have taken this drastic measure as a form of protest against
the free trade agreement. The Korean government has outlawed some
of the largest unions in the country, arresting leaders and attacking
members.
Your continued financial support enables us to work with our
allies in Colombia and South Korea to educate U.S. activists and
members of Congress about how so-called free trade agreements
destroy communities and lead inevitably to great migration of
poor people looking for jobs to feed their families. This is another
Congressional vote that you should tell your elected officials
you’ll be watching.
If we do not succeed in stopping the neo-liberal agenda, our
future will be one where everything is privatized and everyone
is classified as either a consumer or a commodity. When our water
is privatized, when our schools are privatized, when our social
security is privatized, when our entire infrastructure is privatized-
only then will we understand just how expensive “free”
trade really is.
All the major anti-sweatshop organizations, including Campaign
for Labor Right, are meeting soon in Washington, DC to evaluate
our successes and failures over the last decade and to develop
strategies for the future. Thanks to your support, Campaign for
Labor Rights will play an active role in determining those strategies.
CLR is also a founding member and board member of SweatFree Communities.
Convincing city councils and county boards to mandate sweat free
purchasing policies for their communities has been the most successful
strategy to date of the anti-sweatshop movement. I will be attending
a board retreat where we will also be strategizing about how to
organize even more communities to become sweat free.
This is a transitional period for the anti-sweatshop movement.
Our early mobilizing campaigns targeting US retailers were successful
to the point that when we threaten to picket a retailer because
of labor abuses by one of their suppliers, they generally will
get involved to the extent necessary to prevent a bad publicity
campaign. They don’t address the root causes of exploitation,
but they will address specific instances if they feel they’ll
get bad publicity.
Campaign for Labor Rights believes that the next priority for
the anti-sweatshop movement is to raise the economic literacy
level of people in the US so that they understand the consequences
of their buying decisions and so they don’t swallow the
misleading claims of the transnational capitalists and their apologists
in political office.
Campaign for Labor Rights’ “Sweatshop Curriculum”
for middle and high school students and for community organizations
is now ready. This will be a cornerstone of our economic literacy
campaign. I also plan to speak on the topic at several universities
and colleges over the next few months.
If you know a teacher, a library, or a community organization
that you think could use the Sweatshop Curriculum as a teaching
tool, please let me know and I’ll be happy to send you a
copy to put in their hands.
We need to get to the point where people understand the full
effects of supposed free trade agreements and the sweatshop model
of exploitation. On January 1, 2008 we will see the further implementation
of NAFTA, the date on which Mexico will remove tariffs on white
corn and beans.
The removal of other agricultural tariffs have already forced
more than 2 million Mexican farmers off their land because they
were unable to compete with subsidized yellow corn from the U.S.
The removal of white corn tariffs will decimate the rest of the
small and medium farmers in Mexico, while in the U.S. federally
subsidized multi-nationals such as Archer-Daniels Midland, ConAgra
and Monsanto will reap billions in profits.
These policies are outrageous and immoral and you and I must
teach the truth to our family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors.
Your financial support for Campaign for Labor Rights helps us
accomplish that difficult mission.
In October I spent 3 days in Minneapolis, MN with colleagues
from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. We gathered to focus on the effects
of NAFTA and to strategize on how to prevent the further degradation
of Mexico’s food security. Though we face an uphill battle,
we are now working to delay or block the implementation of the
final NAFTA chapters and to roll back the most destructive aspects
of the treaty.
All of this work requires your support and this year that support
is needed more than ever. Due to the continued war in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as well as the early arrival of the 2008 presidential
campaign, CLR is in a very tight financial position. We do not
get our money from foundations, whose priorities frequently change,
but from individual donors like you. Your support allows us to
build an alternative to a system that has obviously failed the
majority of people on this planet. Please give as much as you
can so we may continue building a more equitable and just world.
In solidarity,
Jon Hunt
National Coordinator
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