USA Today / By James P. Hoffa
Despite strong opposition from millions of working families, Congress turned a deaf ear and passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. The job losses since have been staggering. Our blue-collar base is shriveling as more than 800,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since '94.
As if losing jobs weren't bad enough, NAFTA will start costing U.S. lives. A NAFTA panel of faceless bureaucrats recently ruled that unsafe Mexican trucks should have total access to the U.S. highway system.
Currently, Mexican trucks allowed to enter the United States are restricted to a 20-mile commercial zone. Allowing unsafe trucks onto our highways is surely a recipe for disaster. Mexican safety standards may be on the books but are not enforced. According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), fewer than 1% of Mexican trucks are inspected for safety violations annually. Nearly half of those do not meet U.S. safety standards; violations run from rotting tires to faulty or non-existent brakes. Last year alone, 4 million trucks crossed the border from Mexico.
Further, Mexican drivers have no basic worker protections. U.S. drivers keep logbooks and are limited to driving 10 hours a day. Mexicans have no such rules and often pull shifts of 18 hours or more. U.S. drivers are also subject to DOT physicals and random drug tests, while employers in Mexico offer no such protection for workers or the public.
With 4 million trucks crossing the border with subpar equipment, overworked drivers struggling to support families on often-meager wages and the U.S. able to inspect fewer than 1%, it won't be long before an unsafe Mexican truck kills a U.S. family.
Safety isn't the only issue. Drug lords are salivating with anticipation of an open border, buying up Mexican truck firms and dreaming of tractor-trailers full of heroin and cocaine making deliveries across our heartland. The hit film Traffic depicts this in real-life terms. The dialogue may have been a screenwriter's, but the problem is very real.
The problems of unsafe trucks, underpaid drivers and increased drug trafficking do not belong solely to Mexico or the United States. Together we must work toward improving safety standards in Mexico and U.S. border enforcement. We must improve the plight of workers on both sides of the border.
Until these goals are met, I urge President Bush to keep the Mexican border closed.
James P. Hoffa is president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.:
