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NEWS & LETTERS, JULY 2003
Stopping FTAA, in the interest of labor
Nashville, Tenn.--Activists from eastern, central and
western Tennessee gathered in Nashville at the IBEW Union Hall on June 14 for
the Tennessee Industrial Renewal Network’s (TIRN) “Statewide FTAA Strategy
Session.” The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a free trade agreement
that is often described as extending NAFTA to all of the Western
Hemisphere--except for Cuba. FTAA is scheduled for completion in 2005, but civil
society has yet to see the written text or to be involved in the draft
negotiations. TIRN’s Fair Trade Campaign is dedicated to stopping the FTAA.
TIRN’s mission is to change economic policy so that it is fair to workers and
uplifts communities. In a session on “Language and Culture of the
Campaign,” an organizer asked four questions of the participants, a quarter of
whom were people of color, to demonstrate who the people are that are most
affected by the FTAA. When she asked how many people had been laid off and who
had received or are receiving low wages and no benefits, most raised their
hands, some turning to their neighbors and sharing their experiences. Then she
asked how many people had been laid off because of race or were victimized by
racism on the job, and the people of color raised their hands. After a year and a half of strategy sessions, it seems
to me that we had a real epiphany because we have finally acknowledged not only
the racism that is inherent in the free trade model but the racism that can
exist in any campaign for fair trade that is organized primarily by people with
white privilege. An idea for our campaign was to show how the FTAA
“brews” racism. For instance, there had been a recent KKK demonstration in
eastern Tennessee where the Klan ranted fervently about free trade increasing
immigration. Another participant who was a factory worker noted how malicious
the discourse of “they’re taking ‘our’ jobs” and "us" versus
"them" can be, especially in the workplace. We not only plan to stop FTAA, but we want to build a
grassroots movement for economic justice by 2005. TIRN has launched a media
campaign to stop FTAA with a statewide tour of Tennesseans and Mexicans. One of
our most immediate events is the FTAA meeting in Miami this November, with
thousands of other social justice activists. We have clusters in Knoxville, Upper East Tennessee,
Nashville and Memphis which want to do more popular education on the FTAA, as
well as having a People’s Consultation on the issue. We agreed that such a
referendum is grassroots democracy in action and that the style and process of
the Mexican Consulta is the most suitable and appealing to us. To learn more
about TIRN and our work, please visit our website at www.tirn.org. --Julie Travis Rogers |
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