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A massive display of police power did not deter thousands of union
members as they marched through downtown Miami to protest the
creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Hundreds of
Machinists Union members, retirees and the entire IAM Executive
Council took part in the two-day demonstration against job-killing
trade deals.

For 48 tense hours, helicopter gunships hovered over downtown Miami where 15,000 police confronted union members, retirees and community leaders opposed to the Bush administration’s attempt to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

What began as a series of forums, rallies and a dramatic march to protest jobs lost from unfair trade deals, ended with a police showdown that included volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets fired into crowds of bystanders and peaceful demonstrators.

“The sight of battle-clad robocops leveling shotguns at 80-year old retirees will stay with me for the rest of my days,” said International President Tom Buffenbarger, who led a delegation of 500 IAM members and the entire Executive Council during the solidarity march alongside union members from across the U.S.

The coalition of international unions traveled to Miami keenly aware of how communications and transportation technology can be used by multinational corporations to strip entire industries from their native lands and relocated anywhere on the planet.

“Ten years experience with the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) provided us with overwhelming evidence that trade accords brokered on behalf of multinational corporations represent a grave threat to workers’ jobs, the environment and the institutions of democracy,” said Buffenbarger. “The body count in jobs lost and lives destroyed from NAFTA is just staggering.”

If approved, the FTAA would lift tariffs from 34 countries with a total population of 800 million. The resulting hemispheric free trade zone would stretch from Argentina to Alaska and transfer enormous power from democratic governments to global corporations. Under NAFTA, the template for the FTAA, global investors have skirted child labor laws and successfully challenged public-interest laws designed to protect food and air quality.

The threat posed by the FTAA to the nation’s remaining manufacturing jobs provided community activists with compelling reasons to oppose its creation. During a workers’ forum in Miami with labor representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Central America, IAM Local 2063 President Dave Bevard described the slow death of his hometown of Galesburg, IL following the decision by Maytag to move production to Reynosa, Mexico.

“A good and decent way of life will end as thousands of workers in Galesburg and nearby counties lose their jobs,” said Bevard. “And Galesburg is not alone.”

According to the Economic Policy Institute, U.S. communities lost 879,280 jobs as a direct result of NAFTA. Additionally, for every manufacturing job lost,  up to four additional jobs vanish in the regional  economic contraction  that follows.

While the events in Miami produced a steely resolve among the activists who attended, the best that trade ministers from 34 countries could generate was a lukewarm resolution allowing individual countries to sidestep the broader scope of the agreement sought by the U.S.