Fast
Track Alert
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) has scheduled HR 3005, the
Republican sponsored Fast Track plan for a vote on Thursday, December 6,
2001. The Republican leadership has tried several times this year to bring
fast track up for a vote, but they have had to pull back each time because
they lacked the votes to win. This bill has no labor or environmental
protections and like NAFTA, it will end up sticking it to working
Americans. Now is the time to take action.
Please visit
the ILWU web site, www.ilwu.org
and send a letter to
your Member of Congress and tell them that we oppose the Republican Fast
Track scheme. While your there, send a letter to your Senator asking them
to oppose the nomination of Eugene Scalia for Solicitor of Labor. Thank
you for participating in the ILWU grassroots effort. You really can make a
difference.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Text of Legislative Alert
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) set Thursday, December 6th, as the
date the House of Representatives will vote of H.R. 3005, the Republican
leadership's fast track bill. The House Republican leadership has tried
several times this year to bring fast track up for a vote, but they have
had to pull back each time because they lacked the votes to win. With the
White House expected to make a major push for votes, the next few weeks
will be the crucial test.
The
legislation that will be considered is completely inadequate and
does nothing to ensure that enforceable standards will be
incorporated into trade agreements. H.R. 3005 is a bad fast track
bill that will produce more flawed trade agreements that will
continue to destroy good American jobs at a time of high unemployment and
economic instability.
Fast Track Authority stalled over the role labor and environmental
protections would play in expanding trading opportunities. Trade
pacts negotiated under fast track cannot be amended by Congress.
Senator Baucus (D-MT) reportedly told President Bush that fast track could
pass this year if Bush met Democratic demands for labor and environmental
protection. If not, he promised, Congress would consider granting Bush
fast track authority limited to a new round of the World Trade
Organization.
Bush is interested in obtaining "Fast Track" authority so he
can expand NAFTA to include countries in Central and South America and the
Caribbean. Any new Bush agreement will likely include a provision for
multinational corporations to sue federal, state and local government over
food safety, worker health and safety and other issues. We simply cannot
allow the most anti-labor President in my lifetime to have unlimited
authority to bargain away jobs and health and safety standards in the name
of Free Trade.
Call your Member of Congress today at (202) 225-3121 and demand a NO vote
on Fast Track or please use the ILWU Legislative Action Center.
Text of Letter
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) opposes so-called
Trade Promotion Authority legislation (HR 3005) that grants President Bush
Fast Track Authority to expedite Trade Agreements. This Authority limits
Congress' ability to balance the powers of global commerce with the
interests of workers, family farmers, natural resources, human rights and
food safety.
Specifically,
the Thomas Fast Track Proposal fails to address any of the legitimate
issues that have been raised during the trade debate over the last several
years. Worker rights proposals are weak and unworkable and the
environmental issues are hardly addressed. The Thomas proposal sets a low
standard for labor and environmental provisions and the execution ensures
that even the low standards will not be met.
Labor rights have been a part of United States negotiating efforts
for more than 25 years and yet provisions protecting worker rights
have ranged from weak to nonexistent. Thomas's proposal does
allow for including negotiating objectives on labor and environmental
areas in trade agreements; however, fast track authority is not the same
thing as a trade agreement. The Thomas proposal does nothing to ensure
that the final trade agreements will actually include any provision that
protects labor and environmental agreements. Mandatory
negotiating objective are critical if we expect to make any progress
in the labor or environmental areas.
Thomas's proposal includes a "principal negotiating
objective" which
would seek agreement that parties will enforce their domestic labor
laws. Requiring countries to enforce their own labor law in only
useful if their laws are decent – the proposal fails to provide
any
sort of incentive for countries whose labor laws fall short of the
International Labor Organization (ILO) standards to bring them into
compliance and does nothing to prevent them from weakening existing
laws. Under Thomas's proposal, a country could gut it's labor
laws
the day before entering into a free trade agreement and be under no
obligation whatsoever to improve them – only to enforce whatever
remained. This is simply unacceptable.
Members of Congress who care about these values should oppose Fast
Track legislation that inherently weakens their influence. As in
previous fast track bills, there is no requirement that Congress or
anyone else certify that the Administration has actually met the
negotiating objections. If Thomas's proposal passed, Congress
would
be giving up their right to amend trade agreements. The President
does not need Fast Track Authority to complete trade negotiations and
Congress and the American people certainly deserve to be a real part
of the process.
Trade investment agreements such as NAFTA, which Fast Track will help
facilitate, are protective devices for investors, including the right
of these investors to directly challenge legitimate public policy.
Since there is no power in the global trading system to protect
values such as workers rights and the environment, the system
encourages investors to take their capital to wherever wages are the
lowest and environmental protections are the weakest. These trade
agreements constrain all member countries ability to legislate in the
public interest. The ILWU promotes global cooperation; exchange and
communications to improve peaceful relations among nations.
We must
conclude; however, that congressional approval of Fast Track would hinder
rather than promote the achievement of these goals. Thomas's proposal sets
a low standard for labor and environmental provisions and its format
ensures that even those low standards will not be met. In the strongest
possible terms, I urge you to reject the Thomas proposal (HR 3005).
** Legislative Action Center **
The Washington Office has recently revamped our Legislative Action Center.
If you have the Internet, you should drop by and pay us a visit. The first
step is to go to www.ilwu.org.
From there, click on the Legislation and Elections button on the left-hand
side of the page. Then, click on email link to Congressional Offices. You
will find yourself at the Legislative Action Center. Here you will find
four tabs:
1. Home, which shows our legislative alerts;
2. Elected Officials, where you can search for information about your
elected officials;
3. Issues and Legislation, where you can again see the legislative
alerts, important votes this Congress, send a letter to Congress or
browse Capitol Hill Basics, for lobbying tips; and
4. Media Guide, will help your search for local online papers and
write letters to the editors.
There is currently a fact sheet and a letter on Fast Track and a
letter asking your Senator to vote against Eugene Scalia for
Solicitor of Labor that you can click on and send to your Members of
Congress. After getting "in" the Legislative Action Center,
click on the "No Fast Track" alert or the "Workers oppose
Scalia" alert.
Then enter
your zip code in the little box on the right that says "Take Action
Now". This will select your Member of Congress for you based on your
zip code. From here, you can either send an email or
printout a letter. Follow the instructions and enter your personal
information, click "send message" and it will be on it's
way. There will be much more to come – the site is still under
construction. Look for further updates and, in the meantime,
happy surfing!
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