This year, the KWRU has joined with unions, religious people, solidarity and grassroots organizations, farmers' coalitions, and students across the United States, and with movements of the poor, landless and unemployed from all over the Americas, in a historic hemispheric referendum on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Join us in asking:

F.T.A.A.: WHO WINS? WHO LOSES? WHO DECIDES?

ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL, OR MORE UNEMPLOYMENT, HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS?

To the unemployed, the downsized, the poor, the homeless, to organized labor, to workers, to students, to the religious community, to the American people of all backgrounds - we call on everyone to vote on this question which affects our lives and the futures of our families and communities.

The government, along with the rich and the corporations, are trying to pass a new law called the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), which will have a devastating effect on our lives as workers (both employed and unemployed) as farmers, as poor and homeless people in the United States. Laws similar to this new one, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have already made tens of thousands of us unemployed, thrown thousands of people off of their land, destroyed unions and resulted in many of us being hungry and homeless and without health care across the country. Now, they want to pass a new law which will allow them to expand this policy.

This law is called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and it will give companies even more freedom to go wherever they want in search of more profit for themselves, at the expense of our jobs and the lives of our families. The name of the game with this law, the FTAA, sounds complicated but it is really simple. It's about the government taking way what little we have, and allowing companies do whatever they want so that the rich can get richer. And it's about the poor - the unemployed and homeless, factory workers, miners, farmers, waitresses, farmworkers, students - no matter what color we are, where we live or what country we're in - having to compete against each other for things that should be all of our guaranteed rights, like jobs at living wages, housing, food, education and health care.

Here's how it works:

To get richer, the companies, the government and the rich need us to be so desperate that we will take whatever they offer us - regardless of how much it pays, what the conditions are, or if we have benefits. They need a large pool of desperate people in every country who have to compete against each other for whatever crumbs they give us so that we can survive. Remember, they don't care about any of us - they care about making money and having power. They don't care if we are white, black, Hispanic or Asian, if we are American, Canadian, Mexican or Brazilian, if we are employed or unemployed, if we are factory workers, farmers or on public assistance - to them we are all the same. We are all poor people who they will use however they need to to make a profit. The lower our wages, the worse our conditions, the more of us who are desperate - the more profit they make. And the more they can pit us against each other, the more they can divide us and keep us disorganized - the more power they have to continue hurting us.

Up until recently, certain laws and rights that we had have kept them from having too much power over us. Now, though, they are taking away those rights, and with the FTAA, they want to change the laws so that large corporations have absolute freedom across the Americas.
What does this mean for us in the United States?

The FTAA would give factory owners and growers more freedom to go wherever they can pay people the least. This will mean that more and more companies will leave our communities. Those that stay will pay us lower wages to make it worth it to them to stay.

The FTAA will also force farmers to lower our prices, by making us compete with farmers in other countries to sell our products. But this will not benefit either small farmers in the United States or anywhere else. As it has already, this will have the same effect in all of our countries - forcing us to give up our farms and allowing large businesses to take over our land.

And, the FTAA is tied to policies such as welfare reform and cuts in government support for education and health care. These cuts, which mean that the government no longer has a responsibility to meet the needs of its people, help to ensure that we have no choices but to take whatever dangerous, low-paying job is available. Also, since the FTAA would take away our jobs and lower our wages, it will also mean hospitals, schools and utilities companies closing, since we won't be able to afford these things.

The FTAA means one thing - another law to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, to create more unemployed people, to lower our wages, to pit us against each other.

But we have another choice: Economic Human Rights. Economic Human Rights means everyone having our basic human rights to what we need to live, rights that have been guaranteed to us by international law:

A Job at a Living Wage, Health Care Housing, heat, water Food Education The Right to Organize to defend our Rights

We can win these rights back: by educating ourselves, by getting organized, by uniting as poor people, as workers, both employed and unemployed, across the United States and across the Americas, by refusing to let them divide us or make us invisible.

We can also vote, along with millions of people across the Americas, in this referendum to vote for the kind of future we want - whose vision will win:

• That of the rich - the FTAA
• Or that of the poor, of workers, of the downsized, of the homeless - Economic Human Rights for All

As poor people, as workers, our lives and futures depend on us getting just as organized as the rich are, and uniting across every barrier to fight for what we all need. We must be in the lead and we must visible. Join us to oppose the FTAA! Join us to build a movement for economic human rights in the United States, led by the poor!