STOP The TPP: National Call-In Days Monday And Tuesday

By The Pa. AFL-CIO

– With officials from the twelve countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) convening in New Zealand today to formally sign the agreement, President Trumka joined Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and many of our allies on Capitol Hill to reiterate our strong opposition to the TPP. President Trumka called the agreement toxic and said no photo op can change the fact that millions of working people are united in opposition to the TPP.

Now more than ever, as pro-TPP forces attempt to build momentum for the agreement, working people need to raise their voices and let members of Congress know that if the TPP comes up for a vote, we are going to kill it once and for all.  Call Congress at 1-855-856-7545 and tell your Representative to REJECT the TPP.

Call Congress, today or tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday, February 8-9, and throughout the week. Let’s send a strong message to U.S. House offices that Congress must reject – and not put to a vote – trade deals that lower our wages and kill our jobs.

Why Should Workers Oppose The Trans-Pacific Partnership?

  • Voting for the TPP means fewer jobs and lower wages for American workers. This is because it fails to address currency manipulation; has incredibly weak rules of origin on autos and auto parts; and fails to level the playing field in terms of state-owned enterprises and labor and environmental standards.
  • All the rhetoric being used to pitch the TPP has been heard before. NAFTA and CAFTA were supposed to end undocumented immigration. The Colombia FTA was supposed to solve the long-standing issues of violent repression of labor unionists. And the Korea FTA was going to create 70,000 jobs. Not one of these promises has been fulfilled.
  • Far from helping America lead in the world, provisions like ISDS, a form of private “corporate court” for foreign investors only, will help global corporations write the rules of trade and receive potentially huge payouts of taxpayer funds.
  • The evidence from 20 years of the corporate trade agenda is in. Leading economists including Jared Bernstein, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich agree that the TPP—as currently drafted—won’t work for working families.
  • The AARP, Doctors Without Borders, and Oxfam America agree: TPP contains extreme patent protections for name-brand pharmaceuticals that threaten to restrict access to lifesaving medicines in all TPP countries, including in the US.
  • We continue to hear promises about how the TPP will have the “highest labor standards ever,” but USTR won’t share plans to bring Vietnam, Mexico, Malaysia, and Brunei—all egregious labor rights violators–into compliance with international standards, and the GAO has demonstrated that US enforcement is weak no matter what the labor standards are.
  • We continue to hear that the TPP will help raise standards in China—it won’t. The TPP’s lack of rules against currency manipulation and weak rules of origin mean that China can benefit from the TPP without ever joining or changing its ways.
  • We keep hearing that TPP will increase exports—but it’s unlikely to increase net exports, which are needed to create jobs. Our massive trade deficit with TPP countries like Japan is likely to continue to grow, particularly because TPP fails to include currency rules.
  • The TPP will weaken Buy American policies, sending taxpayer dollars overseas instead of creating U.S. jobs.
  • This could have been different. The AFL-CIO put forward a positive trade agenda for the TPP, but unfortunately, the USTR ignored our advice and listened to Wall Street and global corporations instead.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6735