Time for Fair Trade not NAFTA on Steroids

TPP Customer Service Campaign, CWA Local 9408

We need to stop fast track and reject the Trans Pacific Partnership.  This deal is not about trade, it is about foreign policy and about protecting the profits of multi national corporations.  Citizen rights are an after thought just as they have been in every deal since NAFTA 20 years ago.

First, in trying to move the Vietnamese government a step closer to US policy than Chinese, US workers and consumers are exposed to a government that tramples the rights of its 90 million people, with a 28 cents an hour minimum wage, and little protection for the rights of its workers, the environment or public health.  US based and other multinational corporations can’t wait to move our remaining manufacturing jobs to a nation where the government will protect multinational investment and US and other workers will now be told to compete with wages half the rate of Mexico and central America and even China.

If Vietnam or any of the 12 and growing number of  TPP nations improve worker rights, environmental protection or legislate anything that threatens the profits of  investors, the Multinational corporation can sue in a secret arbitration tribunal for any loss of future profits due to legislative action.

This is not science fiction.  There are 500 such cases pending now from 20 years of similar deals since NAFTA.  Philip Morris suing Uruguay and Australia for warnings on cigarette packaging; transportation giant Veolia suing Egypt for raising its minimum wage; Swedish energy giant Vattenfall suing Germany for limiting nuclear energy in the wake of Fukishima.

Fast Track for TPP would mean that TPP would get an up or down vote with no amendments in both the House and Senate, before Congress even knows what’s in the thousands of pages.  Our nation, and our voters, no matter our party identification want open and transparent government.  We reject a global economy where multinationals can sue governments outside courts of law, while citizen rights would continue to be adjudicated government to government.

Recently I returned from Honduras and viewed the devastation of 10 years of CAFTA.  Human rights activists across that poor and beleaguered nation told our delegation how small farmers lost their land, and moved to dangerous and over crowded cities as palm oil replaced beans and poverty and violence worsened. 

We support fair trade for the 21st century but it must balance our imports and exports, lead to net job growth and protect our rights not just those of the 1%.