Urge them to vote NO on Fast Track.

Tell Congress No Fast Track at 888-804-8311

Dear FRIEND,

Ways & Means Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) is pushing to bring Fast Track legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to a vote in the House. Please call your representative now at 888-804-8311 and urge them to vote NO on Fast Track.

Representative Ryan’s Fast Track bill has already passed in the Senate, and if approved by the House, would allow secretive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to be rushed through Congress, with little or no substantive debate.

The negotiation of the TPP has been shrouded in secrecy and the text of the agreement has never been made public. If the lack of transparency is not enough of a warning sign, a quick review of what we do know about the trade deal raises serious concerns:

• Undue corporate influence: While the public and the press have been kept in the dark, a select group of over 500 corporate “advisers” have been given special access to the text, even drafting provisions on intellectual property and other controversial issues.
• Weak environmental protections: The TPP’s environmental chapter is expected to be weaker than previous agreements and will include commitments that are not enforceable through dispute resolution.
• New rights for corporations: The TPP will provide multinational corporations with the right to sue states over alleged acts of discrimination that reduce their profits. Using similar rights in other FTAs, multinationals have filed over 600 cases against over 100 governments, challenging everything from clean water laws to an increase in the minimum wage. All of these investor-state disputes are heard in private tribunals closed to the public.
• Bad for development: Development groups warn that the intellectual property and pharmaceutical pricing provisions are a step backward for public health, reducing developing nations’ access to life-saving medications. They also raise concern about how the agreement’s provisions on agricultural market access will hurt small farmers in developing nations and threaten food security in rural areas.

Granting a Fast Track rubber-stamp for the TPP would accelerate a global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions that nobody wins — except, of course, for large, transnational corporations.

We need our elected officials looking out for us, not corporate elites. TAKE ACTION NOW: please call your Congressperson at 888-804-8311 and urge them to vote NO on Fast Track.

The good news is that, together, we can win this fight. Thousands of organizations — representing the environmental, family farm, civil rights, consumer, Internet freedom, LGBT, student and other movements — have united with labor in saying NO to Fast Track. We need your voice, too.

This really is the time for action. Fast Track proponents are trying to move quickly. Please call your Representative now.

Many thanks,

Eric Gottwald
Legal and Policy Director
International Labor Rights Forum

PS. For more on ILRF’s perspectives on the TPP, check out my blog “The TPP’s dirty labor laundry.”

The TRUTH will set you FREE.