[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1614]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NAFTA=AMERICAN GHOST TOWNS

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                        HON. WILLIAM O. LIPINSKI

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 6, 1998

  Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the inequity 
that NAFTA has created along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. As a 
recent New York Times article has shown, NAFTA has been a boon to the 
big companies, and to Mexican labor, but has created ghost towns in 
American border communities where vibrant, growing cities once 
burgeoned.
  ``This whole free-trade thing turned out to be for the big companies, 
not the little guy,'' Ricardo Grando, a manager at a Brownsville money 
exchange was quoted as saying in the Times article. For many in the 
border towns, NAFTA has not brought prosperity, like its supporters 
claimed, and border communities hoped for. With tariffs removed, 
workers in Brownsville, El Paso, Laredo, and other towns have watched 
their jobs walk across the borders to cities like Ciudad Juarez and 
Matamoros. In fact, Ciudad Juarez boasts a lower unemployment rate than 
its sister city El Paso.
  Ciudad Jaurez's largest employers are corporations such as General 
Motors, Ford, and United Technologies, where average wages are $1.36. 
Compare this to the $7.71 for factory jobs in El Paso, when there are 
no jobs. The largest employers in El Paso are two schools and a 
military base. With lower wages just feet away, it is no wonder why 
companies take their operations across the border.
  Mr. Speaker, NAFTA's ill effects can be seen along the U.S.-Mexican 
border. Just as I and other critics of NAFTA said in 1993, the cheap, 
unsafe labor markets in Mexico are too inviting to U.S. companies, and 
American workers are losing jobs by the thousands. Not only are jobs 
stolen in El Paso, but they are lost in major cities far away from the 
border, such as my hometown of Chicago. If we do not end this NAFTA 
injustice, NAFTA ghost towns will pop up all across America.

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