Fair Trade Protest at Sen. Collins’ Bangor Office
FTA
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
9/26/08
WASHINGTON — About 30 protesters delivered 24,000 pink slips to Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ office in Bangor on Friday and asked her to oppose the U.S.-Columbia free trade agreement awaiting congressional approval.
The Maine Fair Trade Campaign, a coalition of 51 organizations and unions across the state, said the pink slips – a piece of paper given to a worker as a layoff notice – symbolically represented the 24,000 manufacturing jobs lost in Maine since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The protesters said another free trade agreement would put at risk thousands of other jobs in Maine.
“The problem with free trade is that it is sending our jobs overseas,” Daphne Loring, a Maine Fair Trade Campaign coordinator, said. “People are suffering, the middle class is squeezed. The last thing we should be considering is the extension of the NAFTA to Columbia.”
Collins was the only Maine member of Congress who did not take a position on the issue, either supporting or opposing it, Loring said in a telephone interview.
“Collins is supposed to represent Maine working families,” Loring said. “We need her to represent us in Washington. We need the entire delegation to support us.”
Jen Burita, Collins’ spokesperson, said that the senator had opposed some trade agreements, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and supported others, such as the Chilean Free Trade Agreement.
“In deciding whether or not to support trade agreements, Sen. Collins always evaluates the impact on Maine workers and examines the labor and environmental provisions in each pact,” Burita said.
If approved, the agreement would eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers between the U.S. and Columbia.
Both governments signed the Trade Promotion Agreement in November 2006. The legislative branches of both countries need to approve it before it can be enacted.
The Colombian Congress approved it last year. President Bush sent it to the U.S. Congress last April but the bill did not get out of committee in either the House or the Senate. As a result the bill will likely die, as Congress is on the verge of adjourning.
Protesters denounced the risks of unfair trade agreements, for American manufacturing and service jobs.
“We hear about the loss of 25,000 manufacturing jobs but this is just the beginning of the trade agreements’ effects,” Alec Maybarduk, a staff member of the Maine State Employees Association, said in a telephone interview. “We wanted to send a clear message today, especially with the economic context. Right now, we are feeling the effects of deregulation on financial markets but we’ve felt that in manufacturing jobs for years.”
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