TPP Update

Activists Urge Congress to Say No to TPP "Fast Track"

CWA activists and allies today delivered to Congressional leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), a petition with more than 600,000 signatures opposing "Fast Track" authority for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.

A broad coalition of labor, environmental and consumer groups told Wyden, whose committee is writing the rules for fast track – or Trade Promotion Authority – that the TPP deserves considerable scrutiny that would be short-circuited by fast tracking it.

Boxes containing a petition with more than 600,000 signatures of people opposing "Fast Track" authority for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.

The TPP, involving the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations, would set rules affecting approximately 40% of the global economy, covering everything from financial regulations and public procurement to medicine patents and energy policy. It is a dangerous trade deal that threatens American jobs, communities and the environment, potentially giving big business new powers to undermine important laws and regulations. Negotiating the deal has been marked by dissension from prospective partners like Japan that want in on the deal but not at the expense of opening their markets to the other partners, especially the U.S. Such disagreements led to negotiators missing previous deadlines set to clinch the deal in 2012 and 2013.

President Obama is traveling to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, where negotiators had hoped to announce agreement on the TPP deal. At the same time, Congress will be headed into its "lame duck" session with a number of corporate interest groups calling for fast track legislation.

For the #StopFastTrack Week of Action, which starts on Saturday, Nov. 8, and continues through Nov. 14, CWA will join with millions of environmental, community and human rights activists in demanding that the White House and Congress put its citizens before the corporate and financial interests that already define and dominate the global economy. We hope to generate calls, emails and rallies urging Congress to oppose Fast Track for the TPP. Details about the Week of Action can be found online at StopFastTrack.com.

Activists say such bad deals have real, sometimes tragic, consequences, including being a leading cause of population migrations like the one earlier this year that saw thousands of Central American children fleeing violence-fueled displacement in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to the U.S.

Contact your members of Congress, sign up for social media alerts, write letters to the editor and organize anti-fast track demonstrations!