CWA, AFSCME Meet with the Congressional Black Caucus on "Fast Track," TPP

CWA President Larry Cohen, AFSCME President Lee Saunders and CWA District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings, held a productive conversation with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Wednesday about "fast track" and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The discussion with the CBC was frank and constructive. An overwhelming majority of the CBC expressed their opposition to "fast track."

Many of the members – Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY 13th District), Terri Sewell (D-AL 7th District), Al Green (D-TX 9th District), G. K. Butterfield (D-NC 1st District), John Lewis (D-GA 5th District), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX 18th District), and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO 5th District) – recalled passionately the historic bond between labor and civil rights and spoke of the need to stick together to defeat "fast track" and the TPP.

CBC members spoke of broken promises from successive trade deals, NAFTA, CAFTA, and the U.S.-Korea trade deal. The TPP, they said, would be no different, if not worse.