[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17527]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CAFTA IS BAD FOR AMERICA

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, the North American Free Trade Agreement 
caused 5.6 million well-paying jobs to leave the United States. If they 
were replaced at all, they were replaced by insecure, low-wage 
employment paying 77 percent less.
  CAFTA, modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement, will 
hurt workers in the United States and Central America. Under CAFTA 
workers are much more likely to lose their jobs than find better ones, 
especially if they work in U.S. manufacturing or Central American 
agriculture, small business or government.
  U.S. workers will have to compete in a race to the bottom with 
sweatshop wages and low standards in Central America reinforced by the 
weak labor provisions in CAFTA. Provisions that will stay in effect are 
those like those in El Salvador where they fail to provide for 
reinstatement of workers fired because of antiunion discrimination; as 
in Guatemala, where the labor code mandates that unions obtain 
permission from the labor unions to strike; as in Honduras, where the 
law prohibits the formation of more than one trade union in a single 
enterprise.
  CAFTA will result in lower wages for the people in this country. It 
will result in the loss of jobs in this country, and it should be 
defeated.

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