Thank you. Our next speaker this afternoon will be Mark Froemke of the Grain Millers Federation to be followed by Dick LeCocq and then Justin Dagen of the Red River Valley Potato Growers. Welcome.

MR. FROEMKE:

Hi, my name is Mark Froemke and I appreciate the ability as a citizen to be here today and -- and talk. I represent the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, AFL-CIO. I spent 22 years in the sugarbeet industry in the factory in East Grant Forks, Minnesota. In fact, tonight at 12 o’clock I’ll be punching in to do my eight-hour shift. And what I want to do is talk about is put a put a little human face on these discussions. We represent in the Red River Valley about 1,500 grain millers that work in Crystal’s five plants from Drayton, North Dakota, to Moorhead, Minnesota. Counting the Renville, Minnesota, factory in Wahpeton, that puts it over 2,000 workers in these factories. Our towns that we live in are towns that in the main have lost population over the last 20 and 30 years. As agriculture has taken recession after recession, these towns have dropped in population. Stores have closed. And things -- hospitals close and things have gotten much tougher on the people in our communities. The sugar industry has supplied a lasting job, a good job with good wages, good benefits and also it’s kept many family farmers on the land. The industry is a billion dollar industry in the Red River Valley and that money is spent locally. For us in the sugarbeet industry and as labor, AFL-CIO labor, we are not asking for anything special. What we’re asking for is to maintain a fair playing field. If we have a fair playing field in trade negotiations, our American farmer can compete with anybody, and I can guarantee U.S. labor of AFL-CIO, bring them on, we’ll take them on and we’ll beat them. But we can’t have a situation where trade agreements, in fact, not only hinder but can destroy industries and jobs. A lot of times in this country we have made errors in judgment and industries have been lost. We do not want to see this happen to our industry. We also have a deep commitment to our communities and these jobs, these farms keep those communities alive and well. We also feel that with the Philippines and with Mexico we have been in a sense deceived a bit. We in labor in AFL-CIO we did not like NAFTA. We said it straight and loud and clear. We had a side agreement in the sugar industry that -- that it was supposed to protect the sugar industry and it was agreed upon by Mexico and the United States. We in labor still did not like that agreement, but the sugar industry thought it was best and we agreed to that. But today Mexico claims they know of no side agreement and now we are threatened with imports from Mexico. We also have very much concerns on labor laws. Mexico has stronger labor laws than the United States. It has stronger environmental laws than the United States, but these laws are not enforced. They’re not enforced at all and we cannot compete with countries that do not support and do not have decent labor laws or environmental laws. Mexico itself does not even allow free trade unionism. President George Becker of the steel workers and his executive board went to Mexico and they were thrown out of a maquiladora plant. The Mexican labor unions are run by the government. We do not, as American labor, we are willing to have free trade as long as it’s fair trade. We need environmental laws that rise things to the top, not to the bottom. The same with labor laws, let’s rise to the top not to the bottom. These are things that are not -- are not things to be taken lightly. These are things that are important for every American and everybody in this -- in this world. We are also citizens of Minnesota, North Dakota, the United States, but we are citizens of the world. And it’s our job as representatives of our unions and you as representatives of our government to raise that standard to the highest point, not bring it to the lowest. We encourage you at -- in November and December to take our concerns, look at them and come back with agreement that will be good, so I can look in the faces of my workers and say that you represented us to the best of your ability. And that you came home with the best agreement you could do that was fair for all American workers in this country and also for our communities. Thank you.