[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5925-H5926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NAFTA IS COSTING AMERICA TOO MUCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997 the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kucinich] is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, the news from the latest assessment of 
NAFTA's effects is bad. They reported bad news for northern Ohio, where 
I represent the west side of the city of Cleveland and the surrounding 
suburbs. The story there is repeated around the country's auto-
dependent regions.
  The latest report reveals that United States exports to Mexico are 
inconsequential. Mexico is not the consumer market the NAFTA 
cheerleaders promised that it would be. Mexico has been increasingly an 
export platform for vehicles sold in the United States. United States 
auto imports from Mexico are more than 10 times the value of United 
States exports to Mexico. The United States auto trade deficit has 
grown since NAFTA by about 400 percent, $14.6 billion from $3.6 
billion.
  The report is silent about jobs lost to Mexico. The report's authors 
claim that they can only estimate the number of jobs gained in the 
United States through exports but they cannot estimate the number of 
jobs lost due to increased imports. Well, that defies common sense. The 
Department of Labor's own figures of jobs lost due to NAFTA estimate 
over 120,000 jobs lost. Respectable academic estimates of jobs lost due 
to NAFTA put the number of jobs lost at about 420,000. The report can 
estimate only 90,000 to 160,000 jobs supported by NAFTA-associated 
exports to Mexico.
  What the assessment did not say is how NAFTA has affected the 
American worker and the American way of life. The bad news is that 
NAFTA has cost the American people jobs, it has cost American families 
their stability, NAFTA has cost American people their homes, NAFTA has 
cost people health care benefits, and NAFTA has cost American parents 
an ability to help provide a college education for their children.
  The report does not address the fact that NAFTA has made a big impact 
on the American workplace. NAFTA has strengthened employers' hands to 
take back wages and to crush collective bargaining in the United 
States. According to a Cornell University researcher, manufacturing and 
transportation firms have threatened to close the plant 62 percent of 
the time workers are either trying to form a union or trying to 
negotiate a new contract once they have a union.
  Let me give a case in point. NTN Brower in Macomb, IL, used threats 
to scare workers. The company circulated a leaflet with the headline: 
``With the UAW, your jobs may go south for more than the winter.'' Now, 
against a map of the United States, a large arrow pointed south to 
Mexico, and it reads: ``There are Mexicans willing to do your jobs for 
$3 to $4 an hour. Free trade treaty allows'' this. This is right from 
the literature that was passed out in the plant.
  Let me give another case in point: ITT Automotive in Michigan, where 
the company parked 13 flatbed trailers loaded with shrink-wrapped 
production equipment in front of the plant for the

[[Page H5926]]

duration of a union organizing drive. The trucks had these large signs 
posted which said, ``Mexico Transfer Job.''
  So it is clear that people are making threats against workers ever 
time workers try to claim their rights.
  The report makes no mention of health hazards or food hazards of the 
transporter trucking problem. NAFTA opened the floodgates to tainted 
food from Mexico. U.S. border inspectors are absolutely overwhelmed. 
Fewer than 1 percent of the 3.3 million trucks entering the United 
States each year are inspected. In about 6 weeks, Madam Speaker, this 
Congress will be deciding whether to spread NAFTA's poor performance 
over the entire hemisphere.
  This is the meaning of the fast track vote. What we know about 
NAFTA's first 3 years does not justify spreading it throughout the 
hemisphere. As recently as March 18, 1997, a top official at the U.S. 
Trade Representative's Office said in a debate with me on national 
television that they could back up job growth estimates with specific 
companies, specific cities and towns where the growth has occurred, but 
they have not.
  I think supporters of NAFTA should go back to the drawing board and 
report accurately and fully the effects of NAFTA. Congress should not 
give the President special fast track authority to expand NAFTA. We 
should look for ways to protect the American worker, protect American 
jobs, and assure that our economy will have the ability to prepare 
America for the new century.

                          ____________________