FWD: Mexican NGOs Blast NAFTA

[MDOLAN <mdolan@citizen.org>]

  FORWARDED MESSAGE from CHRIS MCGINN (CMCGINN@CITIZEN) at 7/17/97 9:58 AM
  MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS July 16, 1997
  Vol. II, No. 15
  
  
  UNIONS AND OTHER GROUPS CRITICIZE NAFTA'S THREE YEAR RECORD
  
       While the U.S. President Bill Clinton and multinational
  banks and corporations praised the North American Free Trade
  Agreement (NAFTA) on its third anniversary, unions,
  environmentalists, and many other organizations called the treaty a 
  disaster.
  
       One hundred Mexican organizations including the Authentic
  Labor Front, the  Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC),
  the Independent Central of Peasants and Agricultural Workers
  (CIOAC), and the National Association of the Manufacturing
  Industry (ANIT), and independent business organization, the Pact of 
  Ecological Groups, and Locals 9 and 10 of the National
  Teachers Union (SNTE) and more than 90 other organizations are
  demanding the renegotiation of NAFTA. They demand changes to
  protect Mexican industries, businesses and workers.
  
       RMALC just published a book--MIRAGE AND REALITY: NAFTA THREE
  YEARS LATER--which argues that NAFTA has been bad for working
  people in Mexico. RMALC points out that the Mexican gross
  national product actually fell 3.22 percent SINCE 1994. Since the beginning 
  of neo-liberal policies in 1988, the gross national
  product per capita fell 12 percent. RMALC argues that NAFTA led
  to a destruction of productive plants and to the vulnerability of Mexican 
  industry and commerce in the face of foreign competition.
  
       The Industrial Union Department of the American Federation
  of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) initiated a 
  national advertising campaign attacking NAFTA for causing the
  loss of jobs to U.S. workers. The ads will ask workers to contact their 
  Congressmen and express their opposition to an expansion of NAFTA to 
  include Chile.
  
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  ***** NOTES from MDOLAN (MDOLAN @ CITIZEN) at 7/17/97 10:00 AM
  Good idea! Contact Your Congressman!