When organized labor listed the potential for increased drug trafficking as one of its many objections to the North American Free Trade Agreement, union leaders were accused of being alarmist and trying to scare people into opposing the NAFTA agreement.  Now, about five years later, comes this Dallas Morning News report:

MEXICO CITY -- The North American Free Trade Agreement has made smuggling easier for Mexican drug traffickers, and American authorities aren't doing enough to counter the threat, a U.S. report says.

Sophisticated drug gangs are investing in transport companies and warehouses to shield their trafficking activities, according to a confidential report by Operation Alliance, a task force led by the U.S. Customs Service.  Drug traffickers are using "commercial trade-related businesses... to exploit the rising tide of cross-border commerce," said the 63-page report.

Although many U.S. officials avoid even talking about potential free trade/trafficking ties, Mexican smugglers have been busy hiring consultants to learn how to take advantage of NAFTA, some former drug agents say.

"For Mexico's drug gangs, the NAFTA was a deal made in narco-heaven," said Phil Jordan, a former high-level official with the Drug Enforcement Administration.   "But since both the United States and Mexico are so committed to free trade, no one wants to admit it has helped the drug lords.  It's a taboo subject.   While I was at the DEA, I was under strict orders not to say anything negative about free trade.  Now it's come back to haunt us."

The Operation Alliance report says traffickers were so gung-ho about free trade they began studying the intricacies even before NAFTA was approved on Jan. 1, 1994.   Mexican traffickers are believed to smuggle an estimated 330 tons of cocaine, 14 tons of heroin and hundreds of tons of marijuana into the United States every year.

Some American agents are particularly concerned about a rise in the use of railcars in trafficking.  In 1997 alone, Customs inspectors seized more than 5,500 pounds of marijuana from railcars, almost double the amount for the previous nine years.

"You'll see freight cars loaded with freight containers coming across the border, and some of the trains will have 100 or more cars, double-stacked," said Richard Gorman, special agent in charge of the DEA office in Phoenix.  "If you were to try to inspect al that, you'd have trains backed up all the way to the Guatemalan border."

On Thursday, May 14, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will meet with hundreds of rank-and-file union members at an issue forum in Seattle, part of a nationwide tour he is conducting so union members have the opportunity to come together and discuss their most pressing issues, and consider and refine a multi-year working families' agenda for action.

Sweeney will also be meeting with workers and tour the Simpson Kraft mill in Tacoma, as well as address union leaders and members at a luncheon at the Sheraton Hotel in Tacoma.

"Today's unions are working hard to develop an agenda for action that reflects American working family needs and values and expectations," Sweeney said in a statement, "and we are looking to these issue forums to help make that happen."

The AFL-CIO is working hard to build a stronger voice for working families.  On behalf of all of America's working families, the AFL-CIO and its member unions are organizing and mobilizing to advance a working families agenda and to hold elected officials at every level of government accountable to protect and promote the interests of workers and their families.

Sweeney's Puget Sound schedule for Thursday includes:

10-11:30 a.m. — President Sweeney meets with workers and tours the Simpson Kraft Mill, 801 Portland Ave., Tacoma

Noon-1:30 p.m. — Sweeney addresses Tacoma-area labor leaders and workers, Sheraton Hotel, 1302 Broadway Plaza, Tacoma.

3:45-4:30 p.m. — Sweeney tours the Pike Place Market Day Care Center, 85 Pike St., Seattle.

7-8:30 p.m. — Sweeney holds an issues forum with Seattle rank-and-file members (all union members and their families are invited), Seattle Labor Temple, Hall 1, 2800 First Ave., Seattle.  (And yes, there will be a television set available at 9 p.m. for anyone interested in watching the last episode of Seinfeld.)

Teamsters Local 177 has taken the fight for justice at Jet Equipment and Tools in Auburn all the way to Switzerland, where the firm's parent company held its shareholders' meeting on Monday.

Twenty warehouse workers at Jet organized into Local 117 in Seattle in July 1997, but there was minimal progress on contract negotiations.  The talks broke down in January over issues of basic rights on the job and pay scales, and workers voted to authorize a strike.  On the first day of the strike, Jet Equipment and Tools CEO Robert Skummer, permanently replaced the striking workers and hired scabs.  Some of the striking workers have more than ten years of loyal service to the company.

Jet Equipment and Tools is a wholly owned subsidiary of Walter Meir Holding Company of Switzerland.  The International Teamsters Union and Local 117 have formed a coalition with some Swiss trade unions and brought the strikers' fight to the parent company's shareholder in Zurich on Monday.

"We cannot allow a multinational company to come into our community and, in effect, fire workers on the first day for simply exercising their legal right to strike," said Local 117 Secretary-Treasurer John A. Williams, who traveled to Zurich to participate in a press conference and demonstration in Zurich.

"In today's global economy it has become evident that even with small numbers of employees, irresponsible foreign employers cannot be allowed to trample on the rights of American workers.  Our alliance with the Swiss trade union movement is indicative of the new American labor movement, which in order to be effective on the local level, is prepared to take the fight to board rooms across the world," Williams said.

By permanently replacing strikers, Jet is following in the footsteps of the 5th Avenue Theater, which faced a unified front from organized labor when they permanently replaced union musicians last year.

For more information about this strike or to find out what you do to support the replaced Jet workers, contact Leonard Smith at (206) 441-4860 x237 or teamstersl17@compuserve.com.

As the June 2 vote approaches on California's Proposition 226, the so-called "Paycheck Protection Act, here are some updates on the battle that threatens the very existence of the labor movement and many of the workplace standards and rights we've fought for decades to attain and preserve: