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Issues: Trade Policy
A Bargain with Misery:
Sweatshop Watch and Garment Worker's Center
This workshop was developed to educate workers in the garment industry, and to evoke their stories, about how globalization is impacting them on a daily basis. This workshop is especially pertinent with massive job loss looming as a result of the phase-out of garment quotas and the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, which has partially shielded the U.S. garment industry from lower-cost overseas imports. A Bargain with Misery communicates some of the global economic dynamics impacting garment workers in the U.S. and encourages international solidarity. The workshop illustrates how international trade is corporate-centered and creates a race to the bottom in which workers are jeopardized and left most vulnerable. It forces participants to act out the give and take of structural adjustment and globalization’s macroeconomic pressures.
Also found below are excerpts from an interview with Sweatshop Watch’s Karin Mak, who has facilitated this workshop several times. She lends some insight on how to introduce and guide audiences through the workshop and offers some commentary on the challenges facilitators have faced and how they have adapted. Some additional reflections are included at the end of the interview.
Download an Interview with Karen Mak of Sweatshop watch:
Download the workshop files:
GATS Attack: A Guide to the General Agreements on Trade in Services.
Polaris Institute
This is an educational manual about the controversial WTO trade agreement called the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The manual was spawned in response to many requests from teachers, campaign groups, and the general public to make a companion manual for the Polaris Institute’s card game GATS ATTACK. The workshop looks at the move by international trade policy makers and transnational corporations to privatize essential services such as health care, water, and eduation.
Download the entire manual here:
Download a synopsis of the workshop manual here:
FTAA/Free Trade Workshop:
Community Voices Heard
This is a facilitators guide designed to give practical means to communicate the realities of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Download this file:
CAFTA and the Black Community:
Nashville Peace and Justice Center
This is a handout used by the Nashville Peace and Justice Center while campaigning against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in Tennessee. The organization used the booklet to reach out to and articulate the relevance of CAFTA to Black congregations in the area.
Download this file:
Where Did all the Jobs Go?:
Nashville Peace and Justice Center
This presentation is intended for general use, and is part the Nashville Peace and Justice Center's work to educate local communities about the impacts of free trade agreements. The file is in microsoft powerpoint format. A free viewer can be downloaded from the powerpoint viewer download page at microsoft.com
Download this file:
Understanding the Free Trade Area of the Americas:
Center for Labor Research and Education, UC Berkeley
A workshop for trade unions and community groups to accompany the short film Trade Secrets: The Hidden Costs of the FTAA.