Stop the Korea Free Trade Agreement Now!

Watch out, here comes another "free trade" agreement! First NAFTA, then CAFTA, now we have a looming KFTA, or the Korean Free Trade Agreement.

Currently, KFTA is under review in the Senate's Trade Subcommittee, chaired by none other than Oregon's own Ron Wyden. In structure, KFTA is patterned after NAFTA and CAFTA. This means that decent paying jobs are eliminated in the US so that corporate employers can re-establish production someplace else where exploitative practices can flourish to an even greater extent. For instance, if you remember NAFTA, millions of solid manufacturing jobs were eliminated in the US with US corporations setting up production just inside the Mexican border. Here, Mexican workers were employed at a fraction of the cost of US workers, were subjected to brutal on the job cultures and were housed in refrigerator cases along toxic waste streams and ponds.

One might think that this type of "free trade" treaty has been abandoned as one of the major causes of the current economic collapse. Not so...

KFTA, if passed would allow US manufacturers to move their productive facilities to Korea. Particularly hard hit would be the micro-processor and semi-conductor industry centered in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, Ron Wyden, a pro-corporate power Democrat, supports KFTA and is attempting to move this unfortunate treaty through the Senate with all possible speed.

So here's the ask!

Please call Senator Wyden's office as soon as possible. Let his staff know that this kind of double exploitation treaty is anti-worker and no longer tolerable.

Senator Wyden can be contacted at his Oregon office: 503-326-7525. For further information on KFTA, please contact the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign at www.oregonfairtrade.org, or by phone at (503) 736-9777.