Global Trade

The Alliance has educated the public and elected representatives about the dangers that the "trade in services" provisions of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) pose for our public sector and public services. ASJE's well-received report Trade in Services clearly conveyed the importance of stopping the FTAA.

The Alliance developed a "yardstick" that community groups can use to evaluate how a proposed trade agreement would impact them.  This was distributed nationally. In Oregon, we prepared and published fact sheets on the effect the proposed agreements would have on specific services, and used these on a "Day of Action on Trade in Services" in March 2003. Workshops were hosted in Portland and Corvallis where labor and community members came together to discuss and learn about these important issues.

The Oregon Fair Trade Coalition (ORFTC) documents the experiences of workers in Oregon whose livelihoods were traded away under the North American Free Trade Agreements. The “Stories Project” was a valuable project of the Alliance until the end of 2005. We offer our continued support of the ORFTC and encourage you to visit their website at www.citizenstrade.org/orftc.php to find out the latest about their work and how you can support them. 

In April 2003, the ASJE Board announced a "March to Miami" as a strategy to promote blue-green alliances across the country, to educate people about the disastrous effects of "free trade" in their local communities, and to encourage participation at forums and workshops scheduled for Miami the week of November 17, 2003. The march began in Seattle late September, memorializing the origins of ASJE in the steelworker-forest activist alliance of WTO days and concluded in Miami mid-November at the FTAA trade ministers' summit.

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