From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 13:03:20 -0700
Reuters
4-03-01
Argentine groups ready protests for FTAA meeting
By Missy Ryan
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentine groups ranging from labor unions
to student organizations said Tuesday they were preparing a rough
welcome for ministers arriving in the capital this week for talks on a pan-
American free-trade deal.
Trade officials from 34 countries are meeting this week in Buenos
Aires to sketch out plans for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The FTAA would be the world's largest free-trade zone.
The agreement would facilitate free trade among the hemisphere's
783 million people and could represent 40 percent of the world's gross
product. It will be a key issue at the Summit of the Americas set April 20
to 22 in Quebec City, Canada.
Rodolfo Daer, head of Argentina's largest labor movement, General
Labor Confederation (CGT), said the agreement had not written in the
participation of unions, which could secure workers' rights.
"It doesn't exist on the agenda," Daer said.
Social, environmental and nongovernmental organizations argue the
FTAA will grease the palms of big business while chipping away at living
standards for millions of Latin Americans.
More than 100 groups from Argentina and other Latin American
countries are expected to stage nonviolent protests, organizers said.
Officials are expected to meet Thursday through Saturday.
"Because the deal links countries with different labor standards,
the
danger is that there will be pressure to lower those standards. This is
something the governments of all these countries should be worrying
about," Daer said.
Daer's CGT is planning a march in central Buenos Aires Wednesday
and other unions say they will stage demonstrations and information
sessions.
"We fully reject the FTAA and its contents because it would mean a
loss of national identity for Argentina and all participating countries,"
said
Marta Maffei, head of main teacher's union in Argentina.
Many Argentines believe the economic opening undertaken in the last
decade is behind the chronic double-digit unemployment rate of recent
years.
Unions had planned a general strike for Thursday and Friday but
those plans were scrapped after the government pledged to pay
"unemployment insurance" to more than 200,000 impoverished families.
But hostility toward the FTAA remains.
"We don't believe this is a project about integration but a project
about
economic subordination," said Julio Piumato of the maverick Teamsters'
union.
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
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