Unions Launch Ad Campaign to Kill TPA in Lame-Duck
The AFL-CIO and a number of other unions launched an advertisement campaign on Oct. 27 to drum up opposition to passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) during the coming lame-duck session. TPA, also known as fast-track, will shepherd through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another U.S. trade deal cloaked in secrecy and one that will cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, said union leaders in an Oct. 27 statement (here). The unions, including the United Automobile Workers and United Steelworkers, will be running anti-TPA ads through nearly the end of November in the Capitol South Metro station in Washington, D.C., one of two stations regularly used to commute to Capitol Hill.
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The union leaders railed against, among other things, the investor-state dispute mechanism proposed in TPP. "TPP would allow global corporations to challenge U.S. laws through secret, unaccountable and undemocratic, international trade tribunals that do not have to adhere to U.S. law or even abide by the U.S. Constitution when making decisions that impact U.S. citizens or companies,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, in the statement. “Fast Track would set the U.S. on a path to concluding a trade deal that would take policy-making out of the hands of anyone who has to answer to the voters, and turn it over to trade arbitrators who favor corporate interests over the public interest."