Wall Street and big businesses got NAFTA and U.S. workers got the SHAFTA. For more than a decade, millions of U.S. jobs have been sent abroad because of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Finally, 16 years after NAFTA went into effect, a bill was introduced today in Congress that would give NAFTA the SHAFTA. The measure, introduced by Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, calls on the United States to withdraw from NAFTA. The Teamsters fully support this measure.
What this country needs is fair trade, something that NAFTA, CAFTA, and all the other "free trade" clones have failed to deliver. Our country’s trade policies do not look after the interests of working Americans. These policies favor Wall Street and big cmpanies, giving them financial incentive to move jobs abroad, where it’s cheaper for them to do business. These trade agreements have weakened our economy and cost jobs.
Ask the workers for Mr. Coffee in Cleveland, Ohio and Swingline Stapler in Queens, New York, how their companies were given incentives through NAFTA to shut down their U.S. plans and move jobs to Mexico, where wages there are about 75 percent lower.
There’s a bill in Congress now called the TRADE Act that would undo the harm of these trade agreements. The TRADE Act would make sure that the benefits of trade go to workers, not just multinational corporations and Wall Street.
The TRADE Act sets the foundation of how a trade agreement should be negotiated. It also will prevent future trade deals from banning ‘Buy American’ policies and prohibits privatization and deregulation requirements.
The Teamsters are not opposed to trade policies. We just want FAIR trade policies that protect the rights of working Americans.
On NAFTA, we don’t HAVETA be a part of it anymore.