Fair Trade group wants your stories

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Share your personal experience with "free trade" at www.TradeStories.org


Has your job been outsourced? Has your livelihood been affected by increased imports? Have trade pacts impacted your family or community in some other way? If you've been personally affected by "free trade" share your story with others and us at www.TradeStories.org.

For too long, debates over international trade have been dominated by corporate elites and economic ideologues, rather than rooted in the experiences of ordinary Americans. The Trade Stories Project allows people who have been negatively affected by policies and institutions like NAFTA and the WTO to share their views on a matter crucial to the global economy. This includes displaced workers, farmers, small business owners and immigrants who have typically been excluded from the trade debate.


By sharing your story at www.TradeStories.org, you will:


* Help document the real impacts of free trade agreements in communities across America

* Bring issues like job loss and economic insecurity into the public spotlight

* Show policymakers that existing trade pacts are not working for ordinary people

Here are some of the stories shared on TradeStories.org

Joe Stricker
Cosmopolis, WA

Joe worked at the Weyerhaeuser paper mill in Cosmopolis, Washington for 35 years before it closed in 2006 due to increased competition from imports.


"When you get rid of $30 an hour jobs and replace them with $20 an hour jobs, I don't see the win. I don't see how anyone is winning… Just about everybody I know that worked there at the mill is working for less money and poorer benefits now."

Karla Chase
Cosmopolis, WA

Karla also worked at the Weyerhaeuser paper mill in Cosmopolis, Washington for almost a dozen years before it closed in 2006 due to increased competition from imports.

"I think one of the hardest parts is that you have a $60,000 a year job that all of a sudden you don't have anymore. And then you get to spend four years of your life barely scraping by on what unemployment there is… trying to scrape by and get an education, to make only two-thirds of what you were making. And you're supposed to be grateful, like they're doing you a huge favor!"

Please share your story online at www.TradeStories.org. You can also learn about pending fair trade legislation, contact your elected officials, write letters to the editor and more through the site.

Washington Fair Trade Coalition * 606 Maynard Ave S, Suite 252 * Seattle, WA 98104 * Phone: [phone] * Fax: [phone] * www.washingtonfairtrade.org

Working on behalf of people and the planet for a fair global trading system