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Tell Your Congress Member: No Fast Track for the TPP!

There's still time.

Around the country, CWA members are calling Members of Congress to tell them to reject Fast Track authority for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that will wipe out millions of U.S. manufacturing and service-sector jobs.

The number to call is 1-855-980-2256. Enter your zip code when prompted and you will be connected with your representative's office.

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IUE-CWA members in Dayton, OH, calling members of Congress to tell them to reject Fast Track Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

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When a staff member answers, deliver a message that's something like this:

I'm a constituent and I've had enough of bad trade deals negotiated in secret like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Congress needs to read the deal and not vote to Fast Track it before even knowing what's in it. I urge you to vote no on Fast Track authority for the TPP.

In every CWA district and sector, activists are generating calls and writing letters to members of Congress to stop Fast Track and the TPP. The TPP, a massive trade deal that has been negotiated in secret by the U.S. and 11 other countries, makes it easier to offshore manufacturing and service industry jobs. TPP is specifically designed to guarantee and protect future profits for multinational corporations. It lets corporations sue a country over any law, like raising the minimum wage or protecting the public health, if it affects profits. TPP also would make "Buy America" laws illegal.

The Obama administration – heeding the siren calls of corporate lobbyists – is asking Congress for a blank check. Fast Track authority provides special rules and supersedes the normal Congressional process by speeding everything up, not allowing amendments, requiring only a majority vote in the Senate instead of the usual supermajority of 60-plus votes.

The Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate that spent the past six years trying to thwart the president's economic agenda suddenly want to work with the administration on this deal. Meanwhile, a majority of the Congressional Democratic Caucus, normally allies of the president in fighting for the middle class, is overwhelmingly against Fast Track for the TPP, joined by some of their Republican colleagues.

Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary and current University of California-Berkeley public policy professor, released a video that perfectly describes the TPP.

 

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