SCHAKOWSKY: BUSH ADMINISTRATIONS MISSTATEMENT OF THE DAY NAFTA AND TRADE

January 13, 2004

JANUARY 13, 2004

SCHAKOWSKY: BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S MISSTATEMENT OF THE DAY -
NAFTA AND TRADE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued today's "Bush Administration's Misstatement of the Day" on NAFTA and trade.

Joining Mexico's President Vicente Fox at a news conference in Monterrey, Mexico, during the Summit of the Americas, President Bush said:

I believe that NAFTA has worked. It helped America; it helped Mexico. [t]he fact is that NAFTA has lifted lives and ended poverty in some parts of our - in our neighborhood. (President Bush, 1/12/04)

However, according to "Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in Mexico," a report released by the AFL-CIO American Center for International Labor Solidarity, after 10 years, "NAFTA has failed workers in Mexico."

The report finds: ".Mexican employers routinely commit unfair labor practices designed to prevent workers from exercising their right to join a union, including harassing and intimidating workers, hiring armed thugs and attack dogs to patrol election sites, forcing workers to declare their vote in front of supervisors and limiting the number of union supporters in voting areas."

In November of 2003, Schakowsky participated in a fact-finding mission with other members of Congress to Mexico to examine the impact NAFTA has had on workers and jobs. The delegation met with workers, local labor organizers and officials to discuss the impact NAFTA has had on the health and welfare of families and the environmental affects of the treaty.