DAY ONE | DAY TWO | DAY THREE | DAY FOUR | WRAP UP
--Larry Fahn, Sierra Club President
Today, Dave Foster of the Steelworkers and I launched a 4-day speaking tour
of the Pacific Northwest to publicize the dangers -- to the natural
environment and to working people in the U.S. and in Central America --
of the pending Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and to seek
public support for our efforts to get CAFTA voted down in the Congress.
 The day started at 7:20 am with a live radio interview on KPOJ, one of
Portland, Oregon's most widely listened to AM radio stations. The host, Tom
Hartman, allowed us to talk about how after 11 years of failed promises from
NAFTA -- with hundreds of thousands of lost jobs here in the US, and environmental
and health regulations threatened on both sides of the border -- the
environmental community and labor are united in oppostion to extending
NAFTA's so-called free-trade provisions to Central America.
By 8:00am we were off to the University of Portland, where Senator
Gordon Smith and Congressman Earl Blumenauer were hosting a trade forum.
Dave was a keynote speaker at a well-attended labor rally outside.
The place was packed with CAFTA opponents, although the forum was
heavily weighted with corporate interests such as Nike, Intel, the Port of
Portland, the Oregon Wheat Growers and the Oregon International Trade
Commission. Thea Lee of the AFL/CIO did an outstanding job of eloquently
critiquing CAFTA and received a standing ovation. The people are clearly
with us on this issue.
At 10:30 we were whisked off to the Steelworkers union hall, where we
had a conference call with Congressman Jay Inslee, an environmental
champion from the state of Washington. He had a number of questions, and promised to
review our materials closely in the coming week.
When we returned to the University for our noon lunch meeting with Rep.
Blumenauer, we learned that he had left the trade forum early, and was heading to
the airport. I will be following up with him in DC.
It was just as well, since Dave Foster and I were booked for an
editorial board meeting with the Oregonian, Portland's biggest daily paper
shortly thereafter. The newspaper's editors had some tough questions, but
I think the dialogue went quite well.
In the late afternoon we did a series of radio interviews, had a brief
dinner at a great taqueria, and then participated in a terrific town hall
meeting moderated by Portland State professor and trade expert Barbara
Dudley. We had a nice crowd, mostly Sierra Club members that were quite
receptive and engaged, many of whom asked some good questions. Most
agreed to send letters and postcards to their Congressman, and several took
dozens to do their own personal CAFTA canvass!
Tomorrow it's off to Vancouver, Washington for a meeting with Rep. Brian Baird,
then up to Tacoma and Seattle.
To learn more about the dangers of CAFTA and the Sierra Club's
Responsible Trade Program, check out www.sierraclub.org/trade.
...
--Dave Foster, Director, USW, District #11
Today was the first day of our historic Steelworker/Sierra Club tour to build support to stop passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Larry Fahn, the Sierra Club President, and I are traveling throughout the Pacific Northwest to urge Congressional representatives to use the CAFTA debate as a referendum on the failure of current U.S. trade policy to deliver jobs and protect the environment.
This morning 150 union members and environmentalists rallied before a public hearing on trade sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R). The audience at the hearing was overwhelmingly and unequivocally against extending the failed NAFTA model to Central America. NAFTA, you'll remember, has led to a net loss of 900,000 jobs in the U.S. despite promises 11 years ago to add 200,000.
Later this evening, after a day of editorial board and Congressional visits, we had a great town hall meeting with Sierra Club and Steelworker members in the Portland area, moderated by Portland State professor, Barbara Dudley. The focus and enthusiasm of attendees reminded me why we planned the tour; together our message is far more compelling than it is individually.
As I concluded my remarks tonight, "One of the imperatives facing the progressive movement in the U.S. is figuring out how to speak with a strategic voice. A labor movement that sees itself in opposition to or apathetic toward the environmental movement has no place in the 21st Century. Nor does an environmental movement that abandons the goals of organized labor. Acting together, however, we have possibilities that will excite the nation. Let's go forward, defeat CAFTA and build a movement!"
Photos: Susan Knight/Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.
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