Public Hearings on the Free Trade Area of the Americas

Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights

CLR Labor Alert posted February 21, 2002

In this alert:

• FTAA Public Hearings
• Schedule of Hearings - in cities across the Northeast, March 20-30
• FLOC National Week of Action Against Mt. Olive - March 17-24

[Information in this Alert from the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), of which CLR is a member, www.art-us.org/ , and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) www.iupui.edu/~floc/]

FTAA PUBLIC HEARINGS -- SPONSORED BY THE ALLIANCE FOR RESPONSIBLE TRADE

(ART)

Campaign for Labor Rights is a member of the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), a national network of labor, family-farm, religious, women's, environmental, development and research organizations that promotes equitable and sustainable trade and development. ART has organized a series of public hearings on the FTAA to take place in cities across the Northeast from March 20-30.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a proposed trade agreement that would extend the disaster of NAFTA to the entire hemisphere. The FTAA would expand corporate rights at the expense of human rights. The agreement will address traditional trade issues, like tariffs, but will also extend the rights of trans-national corporations in the areas of intellectual property rights and the ability of private corporations to sue governments.

The FTAA will make it more difficult for nations to establish labor and environmental protections, and could lead to privatization of important public services like education, water, transportation and health care. The FTAA represents the next potential step in a "constitutional" process in which corporations win broad new rights while the majority of working people are threatened with less democracy, less sovereignty and lower living standards. The FTAA could mark the culmination of a "free trade" agenda begun in the 1980s that has reduced the living standards of the majority of people in this hemisphere while improving the corporate bottom line. The FTAA will impact the lives of millions of people for generations to come, yet very little is known about this massive new trade agreement.

The Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART) is calling for a series of public hearings on the FTAA. Experts from Mexico, Chile, Brazil and the United States will make short presentations discussing the impact of "free trade" policies in their countries. Labor activists, local political leaders and others will discuss the impact of free trade in their communities. The hearings will also include a forum for open discussion.

Invited Guests Include:

Hector de la Cueva from the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, the leading NGO in Mexico organizing around the impacts of NAFTA, will discuss lessons from NAFTA.

Fernando Leiva from Chile will discuss the impact of free trade policies on the southern cone.

David Kane, a Maryknoll lay missioner from Brazil who is working with the Brazilian Jubilee campaign to initiate a huge plebiscite in Brazil on the FTAA next year, will discuss popular opposition to the FTAA.

Marceline White, is the director of the Global Trade Program at Women's EDGE (The Coalition for Women's Economic Development and Global Equality). Marceline will discuss the impact of free trade policies on women.

Tom Hansen, director of grassroots organizing for the Alliance for Responsible Trade, will discuss the impact of free trade policies in the US.

These public hearings are designed as a grassroots education and mobilizing tool.

SCHEDULE OF HEARINGS

The Hearings have been scheduled in communities throughout the Northeast US, please contact ART at msn@mexicosolidarity.org or call 773-583-7728 or 415/621-8100 for information on how to attend.

 March 20: Worcester, MA
21st : Farmington, CT
22nd : Bangor, ME
23: Boston, MA
24: Providence, RI
25: Burlington, VT
26: Portland, ME
27: Lewiston, ME
28: Mid-coast, ME
29: Kittery, ME / Portsmouth, NH 30: Concord, NH 

NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION AGAINST MT. OLIVE -- MARCH 17-24, 2002

FLOC asked CLR to pass along the following announcement about a week of action against Mt. Olive pickles. Please contact FLOC if you would like to participate. mguyton@floc.com

The Mt. Olive Pickle Boycott was launched on March 17, 1999. Celebrate the third anniversary by dumping Mt. Olive pickles!

Why Boycott?

Over 3000 workers have signed cards authorizing FLOC to help them negotiate a reasonable three-way contract between Mt. Olive, its contracted farmers, and the workers. Mt. Olive provides its farmers with the seeds they use and sets strict standards for the growing process; unfortunately, adequate workconditions are not in their regimen.

Mt. Olive refuses to be accountable for the farm workers' conditions; farmers tell us they can't provide adequate work conditions when they aren't getting peanuts for their pickles. Since the National Labor Relations Act(NLRA) excludes farmworkers from the right to secret-ballot union elections and other labor representation protections, we have no choice but to boycott companies like Mt. Olive when they refuse to negotiate. Farmworkers depend on your solidarity to win labor rights!

SUGGESTED ACTIONS:

1) PICKLE-PICKET!
This requires *very little* of your time! Get all your friends and fellow social justice crusaders together to picket or leaflet a store with you for 1-2 hours. Contact FLOC mguyton@floc.com to get a pickle-picket-packet with a sample press release, slogans for signs, talking points, leaflets to xerox & distribute, and whatever else you might need.

Got lots of friends? You can picket more than one store! Got more than a few hours? You can picket more than one day!

2) PICKLE-DUMP!
This is the fun one! Get everyone in your neighborhood, church, union local, or community organization to "come clean" by giving up their Mt. Olive pickles. Then let your favorite Mt. Olive distributor know that people don't like sweatshop pickles by returning them and/or publicly disposing of them en masse!

3) INVITE FLOC TO SPEAK!
FLOC organizers and members are willing to travel to your community to give presentations and workshops as well as have a presence at your public event(s). These events help raise money to hire more boycott organizers in the South! Contact FLOC for details.

STORES TO TARGET:
Kroger, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, A&P, Food Emporium, Giant, and Safeway.

Kroger is a juicy target since it carries 20% of Mt. Olive's sales. We have convinced 129 Krogers in Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia to dump Mt. Olive pickles. However, despite over 500 consumer letters, mid-Atlantic Kroger's has refused to carry only union brands like Vlasic, Green Bay, Heinz, Aunt Jane, or Dean Foods. Since Kroger is a union chain, please contact us before planning an action there. In places without a Kroger, other stores should be targeted. All the chains in the list above carry Mt. Olive pickles; check your local store to verify. If you live on the West Coast, you're outside of Mt. Olive's market (but we can think of clever things for you to do anyway!).

CITIES WITH PLANNED EVENTS:

Washington, DC; Miami, FL; Plant City, FL; Tampa, FL; St. Louis, MO; Asheville, NC; Charlotte, NC; Durham, NC; Raleigh, NC; Greenville, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Toledo, OH

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