In The News - House Vote Delays Colombia Trade Deal

The labor movement's pressure on Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement paid off in April when the U.S. House voted 224-195 to lift the 90-day "fast track" time limit to vote on the flawed proposal. Without fast track, Congress can delay action on the pact indefinitely.

CWA President Larry Cohen recently visited Colombia with a labor delegation to meet with workers who are struggling to organize in a country where even murder of union activists is routine. Cohen and AFL-CIO leaders applauded the House vote to delay action on the trade deal.

The morning of the fast track vote, the federation took out full-page ads in three Capitol Hill newspapers telling Congress, "Don't Reward Murder." The ads said the fight is "about even more than the wrong-headed trade policies that have cost our country millions of manufacturing jobs, boosted trade deficits to record levels and shredded the paychecks of U.S. workers. It's about cold-blooded murder."