Urgent Action Needed to Stop "Fast Track" 

President Bush is readying a massive push to get Congress to grant him autonomous trade negotiating authority.  This would allow him to make agreements without any public discussion and without any debate in Congress.  He wants this authority granted to him before November when he goes to Quatar, the Arab Emirate where the next World Trade Organization meeting is being held in November.  This remote location makes it impossible for people to know or challenge the elements of these secret negotiations.

There is more and more evidence that these so-called "free" trade agreements hurt people.  They are particularly devastating to women and children across the world.

We must create a high level of grassroots intensity during the last half of August and right after Labor Day.  Members of Congress are in your home district until Labor Day.

Talking Points

Below are talking points that you can use to talk with your Member of Congress.  There are several ways you can get the message heard:

1. Approach members of Congress at their town hall meetings, local parades, picnics, grocery stores, on the beach, at the rodeo, wherever your member might be during this recess.  Give him/her the enclosed list of reasons why we oppose Fast Track.

2. Schedule an appointment with the Member while he/she is at home.  Tell the Member that United Methodist Women are deeply concerned about the increased impoverishment of women and children, removal from their farmlands here and around the world, women in sweatshops and slave labor conditions, 19,000 children dying daily from hunger and lack of medical care because of the greed of the few.

3. Call the Member at his/her local office or on the 1-800-393-1082 toll-free number if you can't get an appointment.  Leave your message with whoever answers the call.  Keep calling until the issue is decided.

4. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.  This is very effective, and will generate more letters and more consciousness of the issues.

5. Write a letter to your Member of Congress including the concerns of women in the attached Talking Points.

Why Women Oppose Fast Track:

• FAST TRACK is undemocratic.  (Secret and Autonomous Presidential Trading Authority without debate in Congress or among people)  If Fast Track is approved, it would be impossible for women's organizations to work with Congress to amend a trade agreement to improve women's opportunities, protect basic rights to food, water, energy, healthcare and education, or to send an agreement back to the negotiators to be modified.

• FAST TRACK does not support US women's views on trade.  A March 28th poll* found a distinct "gender gap" on trade issues.  Eighty-one percent of women surveyed feel they have a moral obligation to ensure that workers who make the products they consume are not working under dangerous conditions.

• Trade Agreements like NAFTA violate the rights of women workers.  In Export Processing Zones, women represent approximately 90% of the workforce and earn as little as 56 to 77 cents an hour for a work week of 50-80 hours.  They face physical abuse, sexual harassment and violence and mandatory pregnancy testing as a condition of employment.  In Ciudad Juarez, for example, over 200 women have been murdered, many on the way to and from work in the Export Processing Zones.  If trade policies make it cheaper and easier for corporations to move anywhere in the world and abuse workers' rights without being penalized, employers will have a new power to ignore the demands of women and violate their right to organize a union, bargain collectively and work in a non-discriminatory place.

• Privatization of Services often worsens health care for women and girls.  The privatization of public services is one of the rubrics of so-called Free Trade.  It has already impacted women's access to basic needs.  Women and children have the most to lose when safeguards are attacked.

• Privatization of Agriculture affects farmers.  Farmers in the U.S. have already suffered from the increased role of agribusiness that has destabilized small and family farms.  Domestic crop prices have dropped, consumer food prices have risen and the U.S. continues to eliminate agriculture safety net programs for its farmers.  The result is the dismantling of the family farm, financial instability for families, higher costs for consumers, and an increasingly ravaged environment.

• Destruction of the Environment Will Worsen.  Women favor conservation of the Earth, our home, and clear regulations to protect our rivers and forests, birds and butterflies, and our children and structure that sustains us all.

• Trade Can Be Good.  Economic Conditions for women can be improved if it addresses their needs and not just those of corporations.  Fast Track gives too much priority to rushing through trade deals quickly when there is no hurry.  Fair Trade that will imporove the lives of women requires the active participation of women's and other civil and religious organization in helping to ensure that US trade policies result in real gains for women worldwide.

Take Action Today!

*Poll taken by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

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