The Central American Free Trade Agreement is coming up for a vote in Congress. Recently, I was part of a group of Maine women, mothers and family members who held a press conference in front of Sen. Collins’ Lewiston office urging our two Maine senators to vote “no” on CAFTA.

We have already seen what NAFTA has done to Maine during its 10-year debut. At least 24,000 good-paying Maine jobs have been lost. CAFTA would expand NAFTA and result in even more job loss for Maine. That will mean less money for families to spend for food, clothing and housing, and less money to support their local community needs.

CAFTA will contribute to the privatization – the “Enronization” – of essential public services (our schools, our water, our health care, our Social Security) that must be accessible and affordable for all. It will make access to affordable medicines more difficult.

Finally, CAFTA undermines our democracy and sovereignty by allowing multinational corporations to sue to overturn Maine laws that our democratically elected legislators have passed.

We need fair trade with our neighbors. I strongly encourage Sens. Snowe and Collins to do the right thing and vote “no” on CAFTA.

Martha Spiess, Freeport