A-Infos WHC - CHILE FORUM DECLARATION

[Western Hemisphere Conference <theorganizer@labornet.org>]

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CALL ISSUED BY TRADE UNIONISTS AT APRIL 13 PRESS 
CONFERENCE IN SANTIAGO, CHILE

Note: An international press conference was held in 
Santiago, Chile, on April 13 to present the conclusions of the 
Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and 
Privatizations, which was held in San Francisco on November 
14-16, 1997.

The press conference, which was covered extensively in the 
Chilean and international media, was held on the eve of the 
Second Summit of the Americas, which brought together 34 
heads of state of the Americas with the goal of promoting the 
extension of NAFTA in the form of the Free Trade Area of the 
Americas (FTAA).

Speakers at the press conference were Ed Rosario, 
Coordinator, Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference 
Continuations Committee and executive board member, San 
Francisco Labor Council; Julio Turra, member of the National 
Executive Committee of the United Workers Federation (CUT) 
of Brazil; Luis Mesina, International Relations Secretary, 
Bankworkers Union of Chile; Erwin Salazar, General Secretary, 
USTL-CGTP (Peru).

Following is the statement that was made public by the trade 
unionists who spoke at the press conference.

*************************

Despite the massive opposition to "free trade" by the workers 
and peoples of the Americas -- and despite the failure of 
President Bill Clinton to obtain "fast track" authority to push 
through the extension of NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere -
- all the heads of state of the Americas will be gathering in 
Santiago, Chile, on April 18-19 with the goal of establishing 
the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by the year 2005.

What is the FTAA?

The FTAA developed out of a policy objective first 
formulated by former U.S. President George Bush, who had 
called for an "Initiative of the Americas." Bush's project then 
took further shape in Miami in December 1994, when President 
Bill Clinton convened the first Summit of Heads of State of the 
Americas. The summit's avowed goal was to "create a single 
market from Alaska to Patagonia ... so as to integrate all 
countries on the continent into the global economy."

All workers, all peoples of the Americas would have reason 
to be optimistic if what was being projected by these heads of 
state involved the fraternal and mutually beneficial 
cooperation among all nations and peoples of the hemisphere 
with the goal of advancing economic and social well-being.
But is this what the FTAA is all about?

Can we expect that this treaty will mark a step toward 
social justice for the workers and peoples of the continent?
Can we expect that this treaty will deliver solutions to the 
immense problems affecting our workers and peoples -- and by 
this we mean rampant unemployment, misery, failure to 
respect social and human rights, child labor, forced labor, 
drugs and prostitution, racial discrimination, oppression of 
women, attacks on labor rights, hyperconcentration of wealth, 
foreign debt, and ecological disaster-- and the list goes on?

To answer these questions, we must look at the model that is 
being used as the basis for establishing the FTAA -- i.e., the 
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This treaty, 
signed by the United States, Mexico and Canada, went into 
effect on January 1, 1994. Today the goal is to expand NAFTA 
to the rest of the continent by the year 2005. What have been 
the consequences of NAFTA four years after its 
implementation?

In the United States, more than 600,000 industrial jobs have 
been lost as a direct result of NAFTA. The same is true of 
hundreds of thousands of jobs in Canada. These were full-time 
jobs with benefits.

In Mexico, since the introduction of NAFTA, more than 2700 
"maquilas" (pass-through industrial sweatshops) have been 
created along the border zone of Baja California and Chihuahua. 
This are genuine forced labor camps where an estimated 
500,000 workers -- mostly women -- are subjected to the 
most horrific forms of exploitation, with miserable wages and 
with no rights or guarantees.

The other regional "free trade" pacts in the region -- the 
Andean Pact, Mercosur, Caricom -- also promised to benefit 
workers. But in every case the result has been the same: fewer 
jobs, greater misery for the majority of the people, and 
increased attacks on living and working conditions.

Each of these pacts seeks to "integrate our countries ever 
more into the global economy." What has this meant?
In Brazil, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is pushing for 
his country to no longer abide by ILO Convention No. 158 (which 
bans unjustified layoffs and firings) on the grounds this has 
placed Brazil "in a position of inferiority in relation to its 
foreign competitors." All this is said in the name of 
"integration."

Similarly, hundreds of thousands of union jobs -- all with 
collective-bargaining agreements guaranteeing wages and 
benefits -- have been eliminated in Argentina and replaced 
with temporary (three to five months contracts), non-union, 
and deregulated jobs with wages far under the minimum 
needed to survive. From March to October 1997 alone, more 
than 250,000 such precarious jobs were created in Argentina.
In Chile, likewise, a growing percentage of the workforce 
have precarious, temporary jobs. 

In Brazil, hundreds of thousands of rural workers are denied 
access to the land or a dwelling in which to live -- all in the 
name of the imperatives of economic "integration."
And everywhere workers and peoples are confronting an all-
out drive to privatize Social Security and pensions, public 
utilities (such as electricity), railway systems, 
telecommunications, national oil and copper corporations, and 
public enterprises (such as Sider-Peru, Pesca-Peru, Vale do 
Rio Doce, Volta Redonda)." Again, all this is done in the name of 
"integration"?

The facts are in!

"Competition, deregulation, and the growth of precarious 
labor all represent the laws of the jungle in a society where 
only the most successful will survive (excerpted from the 
Report by the ORIT -- Interamerican Regional Organization of 
Workers)

The growing inequalities that result from these policies of 
"free trade" only contribute to undermining democracy and 
national sovereignty. The fact is that the FTAA will impose the 
laws of the multinationals -- in violation of the sovereignty of 
nations and the prerogratives of national parliaments. As the 
ORIT reports states: "The signing of the FTAA by the Chilean 
government will prevent whatever majority may develop down 
the road in the Chilean Congress from putting into question the 
economic model of 'integration' that was developed by the 
Pinochet government."

Last November, 412 trade union and political delegates from 
20 countries in the Americas, representing a wide array of 
political viewpoints, met in San Francisco, Calif., at the 
initiative of the San Francisco Labor Council and the California 
Labor Federation (AFL-CIO). The Western Hemisphere Workers' 
Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations, as it was 
called, was strongly supported by the International Liaison 
Committee for a Workers' International (ILC). After six months 
of intense preparations and discussions throughout the 
hemisphere, crowned by two full days of discussions, this 
independent workers' conference reached the final conclusions:

"We have succeeded in drawing common conclusions. NAFTA and the other 
free 
trade agreements, along with structural adjustment:
"-- are an assault upon our rights and upon our working and living 
conditions, and stand as barriers to social progress and democracy.
"-- elevate the transnational corporations and their interests above 
those of the 
peoples of each country. The MAI seeks to make this international law.
"-- have, at their core, the aim of destroying public services, 
collective 
bargaining, labor codes, and the capacity of peoples to resist the drive 
to make 
them servants of global capital.
"-- are in no way intended to broaden the opportunities for employment. 
"Rather, they destroy jobs for many while creating work for only a few. A 
growing number of our peoples are left worse off, while a small elite is 
enriched.
"Through NAFTA and the other free trade agreements, employers and 
governments seek to undermine the independence of trade unions that stand 
for the 
defense of working people and our interests. The strategy of 
transnational capital is 
to cripple or remove all institutions that provide working people the 
capacity to 
resist the insatiable drive for ever greater profits. 
"In summary, NAFTA, MAI, and the other free trade agreements, along with 
structural adjustment, are an affront to democracy, to the rights of 
workers, to the 
rights of people to determine their own destiny. They overrule ILO 
Conventions 
and UN human rights treaties.
"Ours is a call for justice and democracy, for workers' and peoples' 
rights, for the 
rights of women, youth, children, and all the oppressed, for a militant 
campaign to 
stem the tide of these vicious assaults against our unions, our jobs, our 
standards of 
living, our rights, and all the gains we have won in struggle."

The task is urgent!

As we have demonstrated, far from offering any hope for a 
better further for the peoples and nations of our continent, the 
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), represents a very 
serious -- in fact, unprecedented -- threat to the workers and 
peoples, and to the sovereignty of the states.

For this reason, every effort must be made to bring together 
unionists and activists from across the continent in a common 
struggle against this devastating proposal to expand NAFTA to 
the entire continent.

This is why we propose to the various national and local 
committees that were constituted on the basis of the initial 
call for the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference -- as 
well to all workers, youth, and elected officials who will be 
demonstrating in the streets of the Americas on April 15-18 
for the Continental Days of Action Against Free Trade and 
Privatizations -- that they continue and deepen this struggle 
by:

-- organizing broad-based delegations to government officies 
in each of your countries to express to the authorities your 
unyielding opposition to the consequences of NAFTA and to the 
FTAA;

-- assembling comprehensive "white papers" in each of your 
countries with all the documentation on the devastating 
effects of NAFTA, "free trade" and privatizations;

-- calling upon all trade unions, popular organizations, labor 
and democratic parties -- as well as all defenders of social 
and human rights and national sovereignty -- to join us in this 
struggle; and

-- constituting, on this basis, Action Committees Against 
FTAA, the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and 
Privatizations.

No to NAFTA!
No to FTAA and the MAI!
Stop Privatizations and Deregulation!

Santiago, Chile -- April 13, 1998

For the Continuations Committee of the Western Hemisphere 
Workers' Conference: Ed Rosario, Coordinator, Western 
Hemisphere Workers' Conference Continuations Committee and 
executive board member, San Francisco Labor Council; Julio 
Turra, member of the National Executive Committee of the 
United Workers Federation (CUT) of Brazil; Luis Mesina, 
International Relations Secretary, Bankworkers Union of Chile; 
Erwin Salazar, General Secretary, USTL-CGTP (Peru).









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