Reuters
April 3, 2001
By Missy Ryan

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentine groups ranging from labor unions to student organizations said Tuesday they were preparing a rough welcome for ministers arriving in the capital this week for talks on a pan-American free-trade deal.

Trade officials from 34 countries are meeting this week in Buenos Aires to sketch out plans for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA would be the world's largest free-trade zone.

The agreement would facilitate free trade among the hemisphere's 783 million people and could represent 40 percent of the world's gross product. It will be a key issue at the Summit of the Americas set April 20 to 22 in Quebec City, Canada.

Rodolfo Daer, head of Argentina's largest labor movement, General Labor Confederation (CGT), said the agreement had not written in the participation of unions, which could secure workers' rights.

"It doesn't exist on the agenda," Daer said.

Social, environmental and nongovernmental organizations argue the FTAA will grease the palms of big business while chipping away at living standards for millions of Latin Americans.

More than 100 groups from Argentina and other Latin American countries are expected to stage nonviolent protests, organizers said. Officials are expected to meet Thursday through Saturday.

"Because the deal links countries with different labor standards, the danger is that there will be pressure to lower those standards. This is something the governments of all these countries should be worrying about," Daer said.

Daer's CGT is planning a march in central Buenos Aires Wednesday and other unions say they will stage demonstrations and information sessions.

"We fully reject the FTAA and its contents because it would mean a loss of national identity for Argentina and all participating countries," said Marta Maffei, head of main teacher's union in Argentina.

Many Argentines believe the economic opening undertaken in the last decade is behind the chronic double-digit unemployment rate of recent years.

Unions had planned a general strike for Thursday and Friday but those plans were scrapped after the government pledged to pay "unemployment insurance" to more than 200,000 impoverished families.

But hostility toward the FTAA remains.

"We don't believe this is a project about integration but a project about economic subordination," said Julio Piumato of the maverick Teamsters' union.