PRESS STATEMENT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Support Anti-Free Trade March April 5 Called by Global Peace and Justice Auckland and Unite Union
Meet at Aotea Square, Auckland, 12noon, Saturday 5th April

The Prime Minister has left New Zealand on a trip which will include the signing of a free trade agreement with China in the second week of April. Global Peace and Justice Auckland and Unite Union are organising a protest march to take place shortly before the FTA is signed.

The proposed FTA has wide implications for New Zealand. It will cause the further loss of quality jobs here (particularly in the manufacturing sector) following the lost of hundreds of thousands of such jobs when tariffs were first slashed in the 1980s.

The proposed FTA also comes at a time of intense struggle by the people of Tibet against Chinese occupation. Chinese and multinational corporations are active in exploiting minerals in the region while the Tibetan people live under a brutal occupation.

Meanwhile Chinese workers continue to work in slave-like conditions of long hours for pitiful pay while Chinese and international businesses make handsome profits. The only way this exploitation is possible is through violent, repressive state control of Chinese workers such as a ban on workers organising independent trade unions.

The march will call for:
“Free Tibet – not free trade”
“Save jobs in New Zealand – Support workers rights in China”

For the protest to be as successful as possible we need widespread endorsement of the march. Please let us know if the organisation you belong to will support this march and its objectives. We also need support to spread the word about the march as widely as possible. Look forward to hearing from you.

ENDS

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