High-tech companies, workers split over CAFTA
Erica Werner
Associated Press
Washington - High-tech companies and the workers they employ squared off Tuesday over a Central American and Caribbean free trade agreement, with the high-tech lobby renewing its support for the pact as employee groups released a report criticizing it.
The study by groups led by the Communications Workers of America labeled the high-tech industry "the real pirates of the Caribbean" for supporting the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.
The report described benefits from the proposed agreement as negligible and said it could result in fewer jobs and lower wages for American workers, while expanding controversial copyright rules opposed by inventors and others.
"These trade agreements are accelerating the ability and trend of companies to send jobs overseas," Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, said at a press conference to release the report.
"What they actually want to try to do is gain access to the cheap labor markets that are available there and obviously are a threat to U.S. workers."
