While workers across the country are busy fighting for fair wages, full time employment and the chance to provide for their families, congressional leaders are trying to fast track the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Introduced today, fast track will force Congress to vote the TPP up or down in its entirety without the option to debate or amend any of it.
The TPP has been negotiated in complete secrecy, but rumor has it that the document reads more like a corporate wish list than a free trade agreement. It seeks to maximize profits with little to no regard for the welfare of working people, consumers, the environment, or the laws of any nation involved, and its terms have no expiration date. It is unfathomable that any elected official would agree to rubber stamp his approval on a document as far reaching as the TPP without having seen it.
In the past two decades, this country has lost more than 60,000 factories and processing plants- many right here in Virginia- because of policies that have incentivized corporations who choose to move their operations overseas. Working people have suffered long enough in the aftermath of bad trade deals, struggling to make ends meet after wages were diminished or jobs were lost all together.
Enough is enough and it’s time for Virginia’s congressional delegation to take a stand and put a stop to the fast track and the TPP. Working families cannot afford another bad trade deal.
– Statement by Doris Crouse-Mays, President of the Virginia AFL-CIO
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