Down with Fast Track!

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is nothing but trouble.

Today, CWA President Larry Cohen lead a press teleconference call with Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) to layout the issues at stake and why growing U.S. congressional opposition to this massive trade deal is generating bipartisan opposition to "fast track" trade authority. Fast track is a rarely-used Nixon-era procedure that strips Congress' rights to review the contents of trade pact to ensure they promote fair trade, not just free trade. President Obama recently called for fast track, declaring it essential to completing the TPP.

"To put it simply, our members' concerns of the TPP are broad and deep and it begins at the top with the process," Cohen said. "The process stinks and we need to fix it. Everything of substance is being kept from the public, kept from Main Street businesses and even kept from the press to make sure hard working families cannot unite in opposition, if necessary, to protect their jobs and livelihoods. Congress should not pass fast track authority and let massive changes go into place with just an up or down vote and without the chance to investigate every chapter of this pact. If we keep going down the same trade road as we have over the past 40 years, America will soon be the one country on Earth that has not just exported our manufacturing base but also the only one that offshores its service sector jobs like those at call centers. We are going to fight to make sure that doesn't happen."