The Iowa Fair Trade Campaign seeks to bring Iowans together to work for new rules for the global economy that respect workers, family farmers, immigrants, the environment, human rights, and democracy.
Groups and individuals in Iowa have worked for fair trade and global justice for many years. During the months proceeding the 2004 Iowa Presidential caucuses, we came together as the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign to insure that trade was discussed by the Presidential candidates, to present a common statement to the candidates on trade issues, and to persuade them to embrace this position.
A network of over 200 individuals representing labor, family farmers, the faith community, immigrants, students, environmentalists, and others "birddogged" the Presidential candidates throughout the state, and all the candidates campaigning in Iowa embraced our basic requests before the Iowa caucuses. The Iowa Fair Trade Statement was endorsed by 25 Iowa organizations, outlining a common position on what responsible trade agreements should include.
The Iowa Fair Trade Campaign is working to stop the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the expansion of the World Trade Organization (WTO). We seek, instead, a new set of rules for the global economy that will insure that all Iowans, not just a few, benefit from trade and trade agreement.
Plan for September and October 2004
The IFTC will educate, organize, and mobilize citizens in Iowa to oppose the corporate global trade agenda and support new rules for global trade and investment agreements that protect the interests of workers, the environment, family farmers, consumers, human rights, and democratic processes. A major educational component will be the holding of 'town hall meetings' called 'Stop Outsourcing Our Future!' Each town hall meeting will be co-sponsored by IFTC member groups, with panelists representing as many of our constituencies as possible. Public participation and suggestions for citizen action will be a major part of each town hall meeting.
The Iowa Fair Trade Campaign currently has scheduled five town hall meetings. They will be held at the following locations and times.
Waterloo, Sept. 13, Center for the Arts, 7-8:30 pm
Marshalltown, Sept. 27, Iowa Valley Community College, 7-8:30pm
Mason City, Sept. 29, Public Library, 7-8:30 pm
Keokuk, Sept. 30, Public Library, 6:30-8:00 pm
Muscatine, Oct. 2, Muscatine Commuity College, 10:30-Noon
Please spread the word about these meetings and let Iowa Fair Trade Campaign organizer Dave Leshtz know if you'd like to have such a meeting in your part of the state. Co-sponsors and panelists are being identified. Suggestions are welcome. Contact Dave at dleshtz@ia.net or 319-621-4205.
Current co-sponsors include Iowa Farmers Union, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, many labor councils, League of Rural Voters, Americans for Democratic Action, and Iowa Conference United Methodist Church.
To read the Iowa Fair Trade Coalition’s Statement on Trade Agreements in its entirety, click on “more >>” below.
Iowa Fair Trade Coalition
Statement on Trade Agreements
Statement on Trade Agreements
We live in a global economy. International trade and economic integration will continue and advance throughout the 21st Century. In all this, our nation faces choices about the rules of the global economy that will make a decided difference to workers, family farmers, immigrants, the environment and human rights. These choices will determine whether international trade and investments help only a few or whether the benefits and costs are more equitably distributed.
We assert that the NAFTA model has failed Iowa. Thousands of manufacturing jobs have left the state. The tax base for supporting education and other essential public services has eroded as companies have moved or downsized. Concentration in agribusiness, resulting in part from NAFTA and other global economic policies, has compromised the quality of our food supply, polluted the state’s waterways and driven thousands of family farmers off their land.
The issue for workers isn't just jobs: it is also about wages, benefits and working conditions. Under current rules, companies can threaten to go offshore, thereby putting workers in a weak position at the bargaining table. Iowa’s future cannot hold the promise of good jobs and a high quality of life if our nation’s global economic policies are encouraging capital to move rapidly to wherever wages are lower and environmental safeguards are weaker.
Since the signing of NAFTA ten years ago, family farmers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico have felt the negative impacts of declining prices and loss of traditional markets. Because of NAFTA and other “free trade” agreements, subsidized U.S. commodity crops bring prices down everywhere. NAFTA has devastated farming in Mexico and fostered massive migration. Large agribusiness firms spread the blight of vertically integrated “factory farms” throughout our state and around the world.
After 10 years, we have seen that the NAFTA model does not mean more jobs, better wages, or a cleaner environment in Iowa, Mexico, or elsewhere. Yet, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would extend NAFTA to all of the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. The current administration has negotiated CAFTA and is negotiating the FTAA and the expansion of the WTO; it will likely be the President elected in 2004 who decides whether we enter the FTAA or whether the WTO is expanded.
Therefore, we urge Presidential candidates to support fair and equitable trade policies, and clearly reject the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the expansion of the WTO, and other agreements that fail to meet the following criteria:
1. Trade agreements should promote protection of workers and the environment by including binding, enforceable measures within the agreements to ensure that:
• No country thwarts enforcement of its environmental and labor laws and regulations.
• No country lowers its environmental and labor standards to attract investment or gain trade advantages.
• All countries protect in domestic law the rights established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in its 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
• Obligations that nations have undertaken under conventions of the ILO or under international environmental agreements are respected, and no nation is penalized for adhering to such obligations.
• Labor and environmental provisions are subject to the same dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms that apply to other aspects of the agreement.
• Nations that don’t have strong established environmental and labor protection laws are assisted in developing, implementing and enforcing strong standards.
2. Trade agreements should NOT provide procedures through which a private corporation can compel a government to pay the corporation for adverse economic impacts (lost profits) that may have resulted from a government's adoption or implementation of laws, regulations, or policies to protect the public welfare, such as those relating to environmental protection, food safety, or worker safety.
3. Trade agreements should NOT include provisions that cover “services” including education, health care, the public sector, construction, transportation, water supply and energy. Trade agreements should not increase pressure to deregulate or privatize these sectors of the economy.
4. Trade agreements should allow nations to follow standards adopted in reliance on the precautionary principle, recognizing the legitimate rights of governments to protect public health and safety.
5. Trade agreements should allow citizens in the U.S. and elsewhere to regain control of farm and food policy with the intent of creating a sustainable family farm system and a safe and healthy food supply. No trade agreement should impede the right of the U.S. or other nations to devise farm and food policy that establishes fair farm prices, creates a food security reserve, establishes conservation set-asides to avoid wasteful over-production, makes loans to help farmers own their own land and adopt sustainable farming practices, and meets other social and environmental goals.
6. Trade laws should not undermine the ability of governments to safeguard domestic industries against market surges and unfair foreign trade practices, such as predatory pricing and export dumping, or to regulate the flow of speculative capital.
7. Provisions in international agreements (including trade agreements) concerning intellectual property rights should recognize and reaffirm that profits from pharmaceutical and biotechnology products should be shared equitably with nations providing the genetic resources upon which such biotechnology products are derived. Trade agreements should also recognize that nations may regulate genetically modified organisms to address food supply and biodiversity conservation, and not impede a nation’s ability to make pharmaceuticals available for public health and safety needs.
June 2004