butterbean
Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 6:23 am Post subject: NAFTA Hwy Means Mexican Drivers, Teamsters Union Warns |
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8/28/06
NAFTA superhighway to mean Mexican drivers, say Teamsters
Union warns of drug-taking truckers, unsafe rigs on planned trade routes
WASHINGTON – The NAFTA superhighway, a north-south interstate trade corridor linking Mexico, Canada and the U.S., would mean U.S. truckers replaced by Mexicans, more unsafe rigs on American roads and more drivers relying on drugs for their long hauls, charges the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – the latest group to weigh in against the Bush administration plan.
The August issue of Teamster magazine features a cover story on the plan for an enlarged I-35 that will reach north from the drug capital border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 1,600 miles to Canada through San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Duluth, while I-69 originating at the same crossing will shoot north to Michigan and across the Canadian border.
Public proposals for the superhighway calls for each corridor to be 1,200 feet wide with six lanes devoted to cars, four to trucks, with a rail line and utilities in the middle. Most of the goods will come from new Mexican ports being built on the Pacific Coast – ports being run by Chinese state-controlled shipping companies.
"Tens of thousands of unregulated, unsafe Mexican trucks will flow unchecked through out border – a very real threat to the safety of our highways, homeland security and good-paying American jobs," writes Teamster President Jim Hoffa. "The Bush administration hasn't given up on its ridiculous quest to open our border to unsafe Mexican trucking companies. In fact, Bush is quietly moving forward with plans to build the massive network of highways from the Mexican border north through Detroit into Canada that would make cross-border trucking effortless."
So incensed was the union over the plan for the NAFTA superhighway that it sent investigative reporter Charles Bowden to Mexico for its August magazine report on the problems affecting Mexican drivers – problems that could soon come home to Americans with the plans for the new intercontinental highways.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51712 |
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