Perspectives on Social Issues
(November 2004)
NAFTA's Failed Promises to Mexicans
"When policy-makers debated NAFTA more than ten years ago. NAFTA supporters claimed the trade agreement would generate wealth south of the border and give 
Mexicans little reason to continue to illegally migrate to the U.S. This argument centered on a foreseen boom in job creation that NAFTA would bring to Mexico. NAFTA's proponents also claimed that the gap between U.S. and Mexican wages would decrease, and make Mexican jobs more attractive to would-be immigrants....
[P]romises of NAFTA-promoters, such as increased job creation to meet demand in Mexico and greater parity between U.S. and Mexican wages, have fallen short. While it is true that some jobs have been created with NAFTA, it is crucial to look both at job creation and loss in a variety of sectors. The greatest 'success' of NAFTA, undoubtedly, has been its stimulation of the export-assembly factory sector, commonly known as the maquiladora sector. With its relative low wages, tax incentives, and decreased tariffs, post-NAFTA Mexico became an attractive site for U.S. companies seeking to move their production abroad. In the first seven years of NAFTA, 700,000 maquiladora jobs were created. However, as a result of the U.S. recession, 300,000 of these jobs were lost from 2000-2003."
"Pushed to the Border: Poverty Pressure Cooker Persists under NAFTA," Witness for Peace Newsletter, Fall 2004.
Real Security Issues for U.S.
"Security for the U.S. is portrayed as fighting an endless 'war on terrorism.' Yet, the ongoing violence in the Middle East, Iraq, and Afghanistan and the continuing threat of attacks here in the U.S. all point to failures in the current U.S. national security strategy. More lives will be lost and billions more dollars wasted unless there is a serious change in the U.S. approach-from war fighting to building national and global security through a policy that addresses the root causes of violent extremism....
An alternative policy offering real security would require ending the support of oppressive rulers in the Middle East and elsewhere, pursuing a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, changing our oil-dependent energy policy, and replacing the drive for overwhelming global military dominance with policies for the peaceful prevention of atrocities and deadly conflict. Real national security calls for U.S. policies based on strengthening international cooperation and the rule of law, promoting disarmament, addressing the root causes of extremist violence and other deadly conflict."
"What Are the Real Security Issues?," FCNL Washington Newsletter, Oct 2004.
Environmental Impact of Sugar Production
"In water-quality studies from Australia to Kenya to southern Florida, scientists agree: the phosphorus run-offs from the use of fertilizers on giant sugar plantations cause damage to the ecosystems of the surrounding waterways.... For example, increased phosphorus in the water kills off the Everglades' naturally occurring sawgrass, in favor of denser, taller, phosphorus loving cattails, which sets off a ripple effect across the ecosystem. The loss of the sawgrass means a loss of habitat for wading birds, while decomposing cattails can kill a type of algae that thrives among sawgrass, in turn killing the fish that feed upon the algae. According to 'The Sweet Hereafter,' writer Paul Roberts' 1999 examination of the sugar industry, published in Harper's, the annual breeding population of wood storks in the Everglades had dropped from 20,000 in 1960 to fewer than 2,000 at the end of the last century. Similarly severe declines have been reported for several species of smaller birds, as well as the American crocodile.
Following the Everglades Forever Act of 1994, the Florida and federal governments have worked together on an $8 billion plan to restore the Everglades, but the sugar industry has aggressively fought against and defeated many proposed parts of the plan, such as a penny-per-pound 'polluter tax' on sugar that would have helped fund the project. More recently, the sugar industry lobbied for (and received) a decade-long extension to the plan's original mandate that sugar farms meet stringent phosphorus run-off standards by 2006."
"The Skinny on Sweeteners," Co-op America's Real Money, Sept/Oct 2004.
Farm Worker Victory in North Carolina!
"A precedent setting labor agreement was signed on September 16th (Mexican Independence Day) between the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA), and the Mt. Olive Pickle Company in Raleigh, North Carolina. The contract means that over 8,000 'H-2A' farm workers in North Carolina will become the first such guestworkers in the history of the United States to win union representation. FLOC's five-and-a-half year boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles is over!...
Several elements came together as a 'perfect storm' in the past year to lead to this victory: consumer, legal and moral.
- First, FLOC strengthened the consumer side of the campaign by stepping up boycott activity and several major retail chains held meetings with the union and with Mt. Olive.
- Second, increased publicity about farm worker conditions and legal actions taken against the NCGA pressured the growers' group to seek alternative ways to solve problems....
- And finally, the endorsements of the Mt. Olive Boycott by major national religious denominations and the moral weight of their calls for justice in the fields sent a strong message to the Pickle Company to negotiate."
"Farm Worker Victory in North Carolina Makes History: Mt. Olive Boycott Over!" by Lori F. Khamala, FCNL News & Views, Autumn 2004.
Cancer Alley Activist Honored
"Margie Eugene-Richard this spring became the first African American to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual award often called the environmental Nobel.... Since 1990 the Goldman Prize has honored 101 people in 61 countries, including the famous Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs.
Eugene-Richard is a fourth-generation resident of Old Diamond, a neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana, along the notorious Cancer Alley, a swath of the Deep South so-called because of its high rate of devastating environmental illness. She grew up in a house located just 25 feet from a Shell chemical plant. Two of her sisters died of rare ailments. After a Shell pipeline explosion rocked the entire town in 1988, Eugene-Richard founded Concerned Citizens of Norco to hold Shell accountable. By 2000, Eugene-Richard and her organization had pressured Shell into reducing plant emissions by 30 percent, improving evacuation procedures for local residents, and paying to relocate families who lived next to the facility. In 2002, they secured a $5 million fund from Shell to relocate the entire neighborhood and succeeded in pressing for a criminal investigation into alleged falsification of emissions reports."
"Cancer Alley Activist Honored," Indicators, Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Fall 2004.
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Gratitude to the Institute for Peace and Justice
for use of their Pope Paul VIth graphic. |
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