News

November 21

21 Nov, 2011

Congress approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to take
effect Jan. 1 of the following year – 1993
_[Workers in the United States have long understood that NAFTA -- the North
American Free Trade Agreement -- has been a disaster, with more than two
million jobs leaving the country for lower-wage countries following the
law’s passage in 1994. But relatively few Americans know what a nightmare
NAFTA has been for Mexican workers -- the people who, the agreement’s
proponents argued, would be lifted from poverty and be turned into serious
consumers of American goods. In testimonies from scores of Mexicans across
that country, NAFTA From Below details the terrible impact NAFTA has had
south of the border. These first-hand accounts of workers organizing for
their rights, of farmers and indigenous peoples fighting to preserve their
land, and of efforts north and south to build alternatives, document the
courage of ordinary people who dare to join together and fight for decent
working conditions, just salaries, a clean environment and lives with
dignity. Co-editor Martha A. Ojeda worked in the maquiladoras for 20 years
and was the leader of a wildcat strike of Sony workers in Nuevo Laredo in
1994.