Contact: Wayne Ranick: (412) 562-2444 February 3, 2016, wranick@usw.org
Gary Hubbard: (202) 778-4384, ghubbard@usw.org
(Pittsburgh) -- United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard issued the following statement regarding the signing of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) in New Zealand:
“Today’s signing of the Trans Pacific Partnership in New Zealand marks the beginning of the process for each of the 12 countries involved to ratify the deal, but it does nothing to alter the fact that this proposed agreement is seriously flawed and should be rejected.
“Here in the United States, we know that this agreement would further undermine American jobs and manufacturing. Whether lacking provisions to adequately address currency manipulation, labor standards and environmental degradation, to limit the anticompetitive actions of China’s state-owned entities, as well as domestic content standards in the automobile sector, the TPP would further shrink a working American middle class and perpetuate growing disparities in income and wealth.
“In the coming months, Americans from all across the country will be voicing their objections to public officials elected to represent their interests. They will make it perfectly clear that this proposed agreement is just like all the previous ones that have destroyed millions of family-supporting jobs, while shuttering plants and devastating communities. Corporate interests will be beating the drum to further this transfer of wealth from the American people to Wall Street and the pockets of corporate shareholders.
“Congress needs to listen to the American people whose interests they are elected to represent. If the legislation to implement the TPP is brought before them for a vote, it should be quickly and soundly defeated.
“It’s long past time for a new approach to trade. Our current policies are failing. We need a new approach that restores manufacturing as the engine of America’s economic growth and prosperity.”
The USW represents 850,000 men and women employed in metals, mining, pulp and paper, rubber, chemicals, glass, auto supply and the energy-producing industries, along with a growing number of workers in public sector and service occupations. For more information: www.usw.org.
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