Free Fences and Windows by Naomi Klein Page B

Josephina Hernandez, one of the fired organizers, “What we are asking for is an end to the corrupt union and for an independent union formed by workers.”
    The results, once again, were disastrous. On Thursday, riot police, led by the leader of the company union, swept in and put an end to the protest, beating workers and sending fifteen to hospital. The attacks were so brutal that roughly two hundred workers have decided not to return to work at the factory, even though the strike is over, fearing management retribution. Freedom of association, a right according to Mexican law and Nike’s own code ofconduct, is clearly not a reality at the Kuk-Dong factory.
    Vada Manager says the last order Nike placed with Kuk-Dong—for fleece sweatshirts—was filled in December. He says Nike will decide whether to place further orders based on the recommendations of its “mediator on the scene.”
    The factory workers and university students, working together in Mexico, want something else. They don’t want Nike to flee an ugly scene to save face but to stay and prove that its code of conduct is more than empty words. “We want Nike to put pressure on Kuk-Dong to negotiate directly with the workers,” says Traub-Werner. “It’s a long-term approach, but we think a more lasting one.”
    [The Kuk-Dong workers went on a hunger strike, and Nike eventually pressured the factory to allow the striking workers to return to their jobs. In September 2001 the workers won the right to form an independent union, which, according to the U.S. human rights group Global Exchange, “is a precedent-setting victory” that could lead to further worker organization and independent unions in Mexico’s factories]

The NAFTA Track Record
After seven years, the numbers extolling the virtues of the agreement just don’t add up
    April 2001
    This piece was a response to an article written in
The Globe and Mail
by Canada’s former prime minister Brian Mulroney, the man who negotiated both the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S. and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which brought Mexico into the deal. In the article, he argued in favour of a further expansion of NAFTA, to include the entire hemisphere (the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas). Mulroney’s position hinges on his belief that NAFTA has been an unqualified success for all three countries. At the time the debate was published, Quebec City was preparing to host the Summit of the Americas, the meeting of thirty-four heads of state to launch the FTAA. Activists from across the Americas were planning huge counter-demonstrations
.
    Brian Mulroney thinks the numbers are his friends. He proudly points to the percentage of Canada’s gross domestic product now made up by exports to the United States—40 percent! The number of jobs created by trade— four in five! And Mexico’s status as an important U.S. trading partner—second only to Canada! These numbers are a vindication, our former prime minister believes, for the free tradedeals he negotiated first with the United States, then with Mexico.
    He still doesn’t get it: those numbers aren’t his friends; they’re his worst enemy. Opposition to free trade has grown, and grown more vocal, precisely because private wealth has soared without translating into anything that can be clearly identified as the public good. It’s not that critics don’t know how much money is being made under free trade—it’s that we know all too well.
    While there’s no shortage of numbers pointing to increases in exports and investment, the trickle-down effects promised as the political incentive for deregulation— a cleaner environment, higher wages, better working conditions, less poverty—have either been pitifully incremental or non-existent.
    The labour and environmental side agreements tacked on the North American Free Trade Agreement have a spectacularly poor track record. Today, 75 percent of Mexico’s population lives in