Costa Rica is buzzing with ‘referendum fever.’  It is lit up almost as if there were a presidential election.  Because Costa Rica has relatively strong institutions, one of which is the Electoral Tribunal, it is possible to have some idea of which side of this life or death debate has had the most funding.  Of the $58,000,000. which has been spent on the campaign only about $4,000,000. has been spent by the people who oppose the referendum.  It is known that the U/S/ Embassy has poured generous quantities of money into the campaign for passing of the referendum.  (This is increasingly their notion of ‘foreign aid’)

        What is clear so far, from the propaganda we have seen in the streets is that in the capital, the vote on the referendum will be overwhelmingly no.  Last night’s figures from one of the largest newspapers, La Nacion showed the ‘no’ vote with 55%.  Today we will travel to the countryside, where there is less understanding of the issues, and there is more susceptibility to the many fear tactics which are being employed.  President Arias must be concerned, as he is quoted in today’s paper as asking, “Why would we commit collective suicide by defeating CAFTA?”

    Costa Rica indeed has the most to loose of all of the Central American countries and many people understand this.  The standard of living is by far the highest with a per capita income of all of the countries in the region.   Primary and secondary education are mandatory and of course totally free, and many opportunities exist for young people from poorer families to attend university.  Health care is also totally free, and similar to the Cuban system in many ways.  One story we heard was that it could be possible one day that Costa Rica has a Nicaraguan president.  That’s because many Nicaraguan women who live near the border with Costa Rica travel here to the hospitals to have their children, who by birthright are Costa Ricans, but in every other way are Nicaraguan.  Part of the story included two explanations, one that because this phenomenon was so common, Costa Rica realized that they needed to expand the hospitals in those regions, and rather than making laws or regulations to prohibit non-citizens from receiving attention, the expanded the capacity of those hospitals.  The other one piece of the story, which demonstrates how free the medical attention is; we were told that if while in the hospital, the state pharmacy there doesn’t have a medicine that a doctor has prescribed, before being released, the person is given money to purchase that medicine at a private pharmacy.  And as we are learning, many laws in Costa Rica have been designed with a similar kind of popular sensible logic.  These are the kinds of things which will be sent down the sewer of history if CAFTA is allowed to be implemented here in Costa Rica.

    One of our stops yesterday was to a grocery store, where we had a discussion with the clerk about the referendum.  We learned that there are very strong and effectively enforced labor laws.  What is clear here is that one of the purposes of CAFTA is to eliminate or completely gut these laws.  
    Anticipating CAFTA coming into effect, Wal-Mart has already purchased the largest supermarket chain here, which is called Mas y Menos.  ???  From the outset, they have tried to grossly violate the labor laws, with the argument that if Costa Rica doesn’t accept the Wal-Mart scheme, they won’t be competitive (the race to the bottom).  They are devising a multiplicity of schemes to skirt the laws which currently stipulate a different rate of pay for work performed at off hours, including overtime and week-end premiums.  One of these schemes is to offer a fixed monthly rate to workers, kind of like a starvation salary.  Another maneuver is a system of 4 days on, and three days off, or 4 days off, which would require daily overtime, but they don’t paying for. A minimum monthly salary for full time employment is around $280.  Wal-Mart attempts to hire people for a slightly shorter work week (making them part time) and is paying $180. thus substantially lowering base salaries, and violating labor laws.  It is suspected that they are able to do this because they are bribing high officials in the labor ministry.  In spite of the high rhetoric from our heroic Congressional democratic leadership on the subject, ‘flexibilizing’ of the labor force in these kinds of ways is what these FTAs are about.  

    There are lots more stories which will be forthcoming, but at this moment we are headed to north, so they will have to wait until next time.

-- Tom Loudon