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Nike a Good Example of Why the TPP Is a Disaster for Workers, Communities

Washington, D.C. – The Communications Workers of America released the following statement on the President’s visit to Nike today.

The administration’s decision to pitch the Trans-Pacific Partnership at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., is jarring.

Nike has more than 1 million production jobs worldwide, including 330,000 workers in Vietnam who earn 48 to 69 cents an hour, according to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (IGLHR).

The CEO of this $27 billion company – who himself is worth about $23 billion -- apparently believes that a few more jobs at Nike headquarters are a great tradeoff for the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and service jobs that will be sent offshore if the TPP trade deal is passed. It is a great deal, for the 1 percent.

TPP supporters like to say that manufacturing jobs like producing Nike shoes are “low-wage” and “already gone.” How will they characterize the jobs in customer service, information technology, financial services and other services that under the TPP will follow the flood of U.S. manufacturing jobs moving overseas?  The Philippines, not yet a TPP-country, is anxious to join and expand its nearly 1 million call center jobs.

U.S. workers and communities deserve better. That’s why in every congressional district, members of Congress are hearing from workers, small business, environmental activists and consumers. They’re telling their representatives: don’t give up your responsibility to evaluate and amend this trade deal. That means rejecting the Hatch-Wyden-Ryan Fast Track bill and working for 21st century trade that benefits all of us, not just corporations. 

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