NLC - From NAFTA to CAFTA

NATIONAL LABOR COMMITTEE
HUMAN & WORKER RIGHTS ALERT
____________________________

DATE: July 14, 2005
TO: NLC Contacts
FROM: Charles Kernaghan, Director

RE: The Race to the Bottom - From NAFTA to CAFTA

NLC Releases Explosive New Reports:
Alcoa, Lear & Yazaki Companies Pit Auto Parts Workers in
Mexico
Against Cheaper Labor in Honduras & Nicaragua

Action Needed: Tell Your Member of Congress How You Feel
About CAFTA
You can read the reports & write your Congressperson from
the NLC website:
www.nlcnet.org

IN MEXICO, Alcoa threatens its workers: "We can hire three
Hondurans for every one of you Mexicans."

Alcoa workers in Mexico, manufacturing auto parts for export
to the U.S. earn a base wage of just $1.21 an hour, trapping
them in deplorable living conditions. In Piedras Negras,
many Alcoa workers sell their blood plasma twice a week in
order to eke out an existence. In Acuña, Alcoa workers live
in primitive one- and two-room cinderblock huts, lacking
windows and potable water.

In the race to the bottom in the global economy--and moving
from NAFTA to CAFTA--even these wages are too high and these
living conditions too extravagant. Alcoa has shifted 2,500
jobs from MEXICO to HONDURAS and is now threatening its
Mexican workers, "We can hire three Hondurans for every one
of you Mexicans." Alcoa is trying to slash wages and
benefits in Mexico by 25 percent. Alcoa workers in Honduras
earn 68 cents an hour. Like their colleagues in Mexico,
they have no rights to freedom of association or to
organize. Anyone even suspected of doing so will be fired
and blacklisted.

IN HONDURAS, another multinational, Lear, already has 5,000
auto parts workers, and plans to add 3,500 more jobs in a
joint venture with Hyundai.

The Lear workers earn just 65 cents an hour, face mandatory
pregnancy tests, need permission to use the bathroom, face
constant speed-ups, and live in poverty. Any worker asking
for her rights will be fired.

IN NICARAGUA, Yazaki's Arnecom workers in Nicaragua earn 41
cents an hour and are, at this moment, the target of an
aggressive, illegal union-busting drive

Arnecom, a joint venture led by the giant Japanese
corporation, Yazaki, has 3,000 auto parts workers in
Nicaragua earning just 41 cents an hour, who are at this
moment the target of an illegal union-busting drive--which
the Nicaraguan Labor Ministry appears to be unable to stop.
To get a job at the Arnecom factory, the workers have to
parade naked before management to show they are "fit" for
the job. On July 6, four of the newly-elected independent
union leaders were fired.

Arnecom has also set up a pilot project in Haiti, where they
can pay 30 cents an hour.

These in-depth reports concretely document the failure of
NAFTA to improve respect for worker rights and to assure
decent wages. And they offer strong evidence that CAFTA
will similarly fail to protect the rights of workers in
Central America and the U.S. As it is currently formulated,
CAFTA will only exacerbate the race to the bottom.

READ THE REPORTS & ACT NOW: THE HOUSE WILL SOON VOTE ON
CAFTA.
TELL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT CAFTA-You
can write them from the NLC's website: www.nlcnet.org

--
National Labor Committee
540 West 48th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10036

tel: 212-242-3002
fax: 212-242-3821

http://www.nlcnet.org

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--
National Labor Committee
540 West 48th Street, 3rd Fl.
New York, NY 10036
phone: (212) 242-3002
fax: (212) 242-3821
www.nlcnet.org