By P.J. Saenz
The debate over Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) may have been silenced in the Senate with a 62-38 vote, but the fight rages on in the House. IBEW Business Reps Gracie Clark and Business Rep Rey Mendoza assisted with Organizing Stewards Lupe Flores, Melissa Becerril, Miguel Pagan, and myself, as well as Organizing Prospects Ashley Boles, Laquania Davis, Mary & Randy Corrente to come out against giving President Obama and his successor six year’s worth of “fast-track” trade promotion authority. Stan Santos and Rob England of CWA had reached out to our IBEW brethren along with the help of our Fresno, Madera, Tulare, and Kings County CLC partners Randy Ghan & Dillon Savory; Carey Wilson at SEIU 1000; Eric Ellis and Santos Garcia of NALC; Mo Kashmiri of FTA; Humberto Gomez & Ruben Zarate of LIUNA; Michael Evans from the Fresno County Democrats; in addition to members from UFCW 8, IAM, plus other activists and community groups.We had a mock workshop while several speakers discussed the issues with some of these countries we’d get involved with under this trade deal.
Many people today may tune out to the politics that affect them and that can be partly to explain why our political leaders haven’t been the most vocal or ardent fighters on behalf of working families, but our message was clear to Congressman Jim Costa: we are fed up! Fed up with the lies involved in trade deals of this nature and magnitude, fed up with the fact that the only public transparency of this deal has been courtesy of Wikileaks, fed up that our President (who has met opposition from Republicans in Congress for every other measure in his Administration only to have their full support when it comes to profits over people) is actually acting as their personal pitchman! This stinks of all that Citizens United has brought – more money in politics and less transparency.
We are finding allies in this struggle to prevent trade deals that erode U.S. sovereignty, ignore workers’ rights, and do nothing to prevent worker abuses. We cannot accept trade deals with countries that promote human and sex trafficking, which Malaysia has been notorious for; low worker wages that are in most the eleven countries involved in this deal with ours; nor allow the killing of labor leaders who are supporting the very workers that drive the economies of these nations and our own. The explanation that we need to accept trading with these countries under the logic that “if we don’t, China will” is ridiculous and narrow-minded. We should never accept a trade deal that hands the sovereignty of nations like ours to the biggest corporations of the world in order delude ourselves into the idea that this will solve our trade deficit with China.
America has been greatest when its middle class is the largest portion of the economy. We will have to compete with China, yes. However, that can never mean sacrificing our ideals and subjecting more people to terrible working conditions in order to get cheaper products and have a few more trading partners. We will continue to fight against TPA and TPP.
P.J. Saenz is an Organizing Steward with IBEW 1245.