September 2003
Introduction
Job loss and environmental injustice are a
daily reality for many of our communities. The North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), first implemented in 1994,
has been a major force in creating a climate for companies
to enter & exit communities with little concern for
job loss and the toxic legacy left in their wake in the
search for higher profits at the expense of basic human
rights.
As we enter this ten-year anniversary of the
NAFTA, communities across the hemisphere are calling for
an end to the agreement and challenging the proposal for
the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), that would
expand NAFTA to include all countries of the western hemisphere
except Cuba.
The health, well-being, and sustainability of low-income
communities and communities of color in the U.S., Canada
& Mexico have been sacrificed to privatization and deregulation.
NAFTA has ravaged border cities like El Paso, Texas home
to one of the largest Latino populations in the country.
African American workers in the denim belt of the Southeast
who were dependent on the textile sector have watched the
industry disappear almost over-night as companies find it
more profitable to close their doors and relocate to lower-wage
countries. Contrary to suggestions that Mexican workers
would benefit from NAFTA, they have instead witnessed the
value of their wages decline over 20% in the manufacturing
sector while experiencing a 50% rise in poverty.
This guide has been created to provide individuals
and organizations resources for locating community-specific
information that reflects the ways corporate-led globalization
affects them at the local level. For questions regarding
this guide please contact the DataCenter's Economic Justice
program at (510) 835-4692 ext. 315, brenda@datacenter.org,
www.datacenter.org.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Arnoldo Garcia of the National
Network for Immigrant & Refugee Justice for feedback
on the section, Militarism & Migration. All artwork
is by Rini Templeton provided through the website www.riniart.org.
Our gratitude also goes out to the Southwest Network for
Environmental & Economic Justice & La Mujer Obrera.
Your work in struggle against NAFTA from your own communities
has inspired this toolkit.
About This Guide
Creating a comprehensive picture of
the ways in which neo-liberal trade policy affects your
community means combining information from a number of different
sources. This guide is organized by research topic and contains
web sites of government agencies, policy think tanks and
community groups that highlight local information useful
to understanding & assessing the scope & impact
of these trade policies locally. Where possible we have
included sites that organize information by zip code.
A project of the DataCenter's Economic
Justice Program.
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