Jenness implies that the Militant has taken a consistent position of opposition to imperialist trade pacts, and he cites the article "Imperialism's March Towards Fascism and War" in New International no. 10 as an example of that position. He paraphrases that article's author in stating, "Working people clearly cannot be neutral toward a pact (the North American Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA) with such devastating consequences for exploited producers."
Imperialist trade pacts like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and the European Economic Union are frequently discussed and debated in the unions and other working class organizations. In Canada, the Canada-U.S. agreement, ratified in 1989, I believe, and the 1994 NAFTA are often cited by workers as the source of the capitalist economic crisis itself. The Militant has done a good job in explaining how these agreements codify the trends in capitalist trade and investment patterns and political/military alliances and are not the source of the crisis per se. It has argued why workers should reject any opposition to these pacts that would be based on a nationalist, pro-capitalist outlook. But it has stopped short of arguing that workers should oppose these pacts, and along what lines. The articles and editorials on the subject have avoided a specific stand on the trade agreements, all the while putting forward a program to unite workers and farmers against the capitalist offensive - shorter work week with no loss in pay, defend and extend social programs, eliminate the debt burden on the countries oppressed by imperialism, etc.
There are many examples of this dichotomy in the pages of the Militant. At the time of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the Militant published several polemical opinion columns stating that under no circumstances should the unions or other working class organizations campaign against the agreement. An opinion article from Canada in the May 24, 1991 issue entitled "Union tops stand on Mexico trade pact is blow to labor" put forward a valuable program of struggle to unite workers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but said nothing about whether the trade agreement itself should be opposed.
An October 11, 1993 opinion column was headlined "Why `Stop NAFTÁ campaign won't save jobs" and argued, "By campaigning against NAFTA, the bosses' agents split workers on two sides of a river" (U.S.-Mexico). A December 12, 1994 editorial on issues behind trade disputes among member countries of GATT was entitled, "GATT: a dispute among bosses."
A front page opinion piece in the November 29, 1993 issue reporting on the adoption of NAFTA by the U.S. government concluded, "The debate on the trade agreement is entirely a dispute over how the capitalist rulers can best drive down the working class in North America and compete with other capitalists abroad.
"Workers and working farmers have no stake in any of the arguments for or against NAFTA, whether those of Clinton, Perot, Buchanan, or the AFL-CIO bureaucrats."
The article in New International no. 10 cited by Jenness is a guide to understanding NAFTA and other imperialist trade agreements. But it does not propose that workers should fight the agreements per se, nor how this could be done. Several readers of that article with whom I have discussed have drawn from the following sentences in the article the idea that there is something historically progressive about NAFTA. "Putting aside the demagogy of NAFTA's bourgeois proponents and opponents alike, however, the accelerated industrialization in Mexico and elsewhere in the Americas is swelling the ranks of the industrial working class and generating even larger immigration flows into the United States. It is expanding and strengthening the battalions of capitalism's gravediggers on both sides of the Rio Bravo."
A few pages later, the article states, "Overall, the bourgeoisie's privatization campaign and Washington's `free trade' offensive in large parts of the Third World will accelerate the inevitable and increase the social and political weight and leadership of the working class. Our class will emerge in a stronger position to take part in giant class battles between the urban and rural toilers and radicalizing youth, on the one side of the barricades, and the exploiting and parasitic classes, on the other." It would be more accurate to state that the working class will emerge in a stronger position only to the extent that it organizes to fight the capitalists' profit drive, including their trading agreements and all their consequences.
Roger Annis
Vancouver, British Columbia
Safety on the railroad
Your article by Kay Sedam on rail safety reminded me of
an incident following the June 7 CSX train crash in Scary,
West Virginia. It is typical of the rail bosses arrogant
attitude toward workers on the trains and in the communities
affected by railroad `accidents'. CSX sent company people to
Putnam County and handed out checks for $100 to residents
who agreed to sign forms promising not to sue the railroad.
The crash, a head-on collision of two trains, killed the
engineer on the train. It also ignited a chemical tanker
fire that burned for five days and forced people in Scary
hollow to stay in their homes.
Some 300 people fled their homes right after the crash. Only people who had so stay in their homes were eligible for the $100 bribe. In spite of CSX's best efforts, a class- action lawsuit was filed against the railroad shortly after the crash.
Rich Stuart
Birmingham, Alabama
BART strike settlement
Reduced pay for new hires and longer periods of time
necessary for new hires to reach full pay were among the
major concessions given up by the United Auto Workers in the
last two or three contracts with the Big Three auto
manufacturers. Thus it's very heartening to see the BART
workers in the Bay Area go on strike against this concession
in their contract and push it back (Militant, September 29).
The article indicates that in the proposed transit workers agreement, although new hires continue to receive lower starting wages, the time needed to reach full pay is shortened (to 3 or 4 years rather than 6). Yet twice in the article it says the two-tier system was "ended" or "eliminated." Based on the information given in the article, it seems to me the subhead - which says the two-tier system was "push(ed) back" - is more correct.
Bob Braxton
Atlanta, Georgia
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