Call your member of Congress today to say NO to fast track. Dial 1-866-937-4359 or click here to call.
Senator Baucus and Representative Camp are asking Congress to approve fast track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership even though members of Congress have not seen the agreement – which is over 1,000 pages long. Do we really want to let corporate lobbyists have the final say on jobs and workers’ rights, environmental standards, food safety, patents and intellectual property rights?
Fast track authority has been voted down before by Congress - this is a fight we can win.
Speak up against fast track today. Dial 1-866-937-4359 or click here to make your voice heard.
Today, Senator Max Baucus and Representative Dave Camp introduced fast track authorizing legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Read the response by CWA President Larry Cohen:
"Fast track is the wrong track when it comes to a trade deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that will affect our laws, our jobs, our food and our environment. Fast track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, forces Congress to give up its Constitutional right to amend and improve this trade deal, which now is reportedly more than 1,000 pages long.
"For nearly four years, the U.S. Trade Representative and TPP negotiators have purposely restricted participation and information, keeping members of Congress and citizen groups, unions, environmental and consumer organizations in the dark. There has been no opportunity for public interest groups to meaningfully participate in the negotiations, and under fast track authority, there will be no opportunity for our elected representatives to amend the deal and make it better for Americans.
"Fixing any one problem with fast track at this late date is not the solution. As important as workers' rights, environmental standards, consumer issues, job loss or currency manipulation might be, fast track authorization should be rejected, not tinkered with. None of us who focus on those issues had any input into this fast track legislation and this in itself is as serious as the glaring deficiencies.
"If the Baucus-Camp fast track authorization proposal passes, Congress will have given away its Constitutional right to amend without ever having read and vetted all potential ramifications of the final trade bill.
"Some 600 corporate advisors have been actively involved in shaping the pact and had access to the text. The rest of us have only pieced together the impact of this deal on ordinary Americans from leaked chapters. More U.S. jobs would be shifted overseas and U.S. workers would suffer lower wages as companies look to countries like Vietnam, where the average hourly wage is 75 cents and the minimum wage is 28 cents an hour.
"Since the American people and their elected representatives had no input during the negotiations, Congress must retain its right to amend and improve the trade deal for ordinary Americans. Fast track authority has been voted down before by Congress, and trade deals have been approved without fast track authorization. Congress must reject fast track authorization or at least start over to craft an inclusive fast track process.
"We mark 20 years of NAFTA by fighting harder than ever for fair trade, transparency and participation from the start by all who should be involved not just multinational corporations and appointed officials who claim to represent national security interests."
10 WAYS THE TPP WOULD HURT U.S.
WORKING FAMILIES
1. The off shoring of U.S. manufacturing, service, and even public sector jobs will increase. The U.S. is projected to lose more than 130,000 jobs solely due to the inclusion of Japan and Vietnam in the TPP.
2. U.S. sovereignty will be under- mined by giving corporations the right to challenge our laws before international tribunals. The TPP creates a special dispute resolution process that allows corporations to challenge any domestic laws that could adversely impact their “expected future profits”.
3. Our wages, benefits and collective bargaining rights will be eroded. As we saw with other trade agreements, the TPP will exacerbate the race to the bottom because it places our workers in competition with corporations operating in countries like Vietnam, which only have to pay a minimum wage of just 28 cents an hour.
4. Our ability to protect the environment will be undermined. Similar language in past agreements has led to over $14 billion in pending claims, mostly challenges to environmental laws in a number of countries.
5. Food safety standards will be eroded. The TPP would subject our food standards, labeling programs and specific-pesticide regulations to challenge by foreign corporations.
For more information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, visit: StoptheTPP.org
|
|
6. The federal government and maybe state governments would be prohibited from giving preferences to American made goods and services. Firms operating in any TPP signatory country must be given equal access to the vast majority of U.S. federal procurement contracts rather than allowing us to recycle our tax dollars here to create American jobs. “Buy American, “Renewable/Recycled” and “Sweatshop Free” specifications could be challenged.
7. Medicine prices would increase, access to life saving drugs would decrease and the profits of big pharmaceutical companies would expand. Doctors without Borders stated, “The TPP agreement is on track to become the most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines in developing countries”.
8. Wall Street would benefit at the expense of workers, businesses and global financial stability. The TPP would expand the rights and power of the same Wall Street firms that already wrecked our economy and would create the conditions for even more global financial instability in the future.
9. The TPP will reward authoritarian regimes like Vietnam that systematically violates human rights. The U.S. Departments of State and Labor, Human Rights Watch, Workers’ Rights Consortium and Amnesty International have documented Vietnam’s widespread violation of basic international standards for human rights.
10. The TPP would be forever. Once the TPP is signed it would have no expiration date and could only be altered by a consensus of all signatories - locking in its failed, extreme policies. Also, the TPP is intended as a “docking agreement” that other Pacific Rim countries could join over time if accepted by the signatory countries.
|
|