Activists Protest Secret Trade Deal

District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings speaks at the rally.

Below: Members from CWA, UAW, Sierra Club and more march on the closed-door negotiations.

Nearly 400 protesters marched to the doorstep of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiators this weekend, demanding transparency and accountability in the secretive international trade talks.

Rallying outside the Intercontinental Hotel — host to the closed-door negotiations in Addison, Texas — they raised awareness that hundreds of international trade ministers and corporate lobbyists are discussing deals that could restrict Internet freedom, reduce access to life-saving medicines and encourage American companies to move more jobs overseas. TPP, they warned, has the power to end "Buy American" policies and weaken environmental law.

"Where is labor?" said CWA Local 6215 Executive Vice President Nancy Hall. "We always build the table. We make the chairs. But we're not allowed to sit there and partake in the discussions. No one there was speaking on our behalf."

During a Dallas area telephone town hall meeting, CWA District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings noted that U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials had access to the texts and proposals, but "workers who face the loss of their livelihoods and communities that face economic downturn are denied any input."

About 95 CWA members joined their progressive partners, like the Citizens Trade Campaign and the Sierra Club, in protesting against what stands to be the largest free trade agreement in the history of the United States. TPP now includes Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Singapore, but Canada, Mexico and Japan also want to join.

Later, activists crashed the conference gala, taking the podium to present US Trade Representative Ron Kirk with their "Corporate Power Tool Award" — a fake honor Kirk almost accepted if it wasn't for the intervention of his Secret Service minders.

And other protesters succeeded in replacing hundreds of rolls of toilet paper throughout the hotel with a more informative variety.

The next round of talks is scheduled to be held in San Diego in early July.

"They have kept it so under wraps that no one knows about TPP," said Herb Keener of CWA Local 6215. "We need to start hammering it home and let people know there's another negotiation. We have three months to be on our toes. Let's educate them. That's our job. We have to get it out when no one else will."