The AFL-CIO remains strongly opposed to the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement “until Colombia takes sustained, meaningful, and measurable action to change the culture of violence that plagues those who work to better their lives,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a letter to Congress yesterday.

With free trade agreements between the United States and Panama, South Korea and Colombia set to hit the congressional floor as soon as this month, lawmakers should check out recent polling which shows American voters are overwhelmingly opposed to trade deals that end up sending jobs overseas.

Shonda Sneed of Yellow Springs, Ohio, was laid off in December 2009 and is about to run out of unemployment benefits. Because of state budget cuts, she also could soon lose the health care nurse who helps care for her mother who has dementia. At the last job she applied for, she was told 450 others had also applied for the same position.

Congress and the White House are intent on ramming through three job-killing trade agreements. That’s why you need to tell your senators and representatives to stop the South Korea, Panama and Colombia free trade agreements and get to work promoting job growth in the United States, rather than offshoring American jobs. Click here to send them a message now.

Senate Republicans who nearly worship at the feet of free trade agreements—to heck with their devastating impact on U.S. workers—boycotted an opportunity to move the most recent free trade holy trinity of South Korea, Colombia and Panama deals closer to a vote.

If China increased the value of its currency to its real level, the resulting growth in the United States could create 2.25 million new U.S. jobs, according to a new report.      

The Benefits of Revaluation, released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), explains that if the value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, and satellite currencies, such as those in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, were increased by 25 percent to 30 percent against the dollar, the U.S. gross domestic product would grow as much as $285.7 billion, creating up to 2.25 million U.S. jobs. Creating that many jobs would reduce the U.S. unemployment rate by at least one full percentage point.

The proposed U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement will only exacerbate already “critical” conditions of poverty and repression in Colombia. Further, the labor action plan that was negotiated between the United States and Colombia in April does not include provisions to verify that workers are being treated better, several Colombian trade unionists  said today.

Join the human rights advocacy group STITCH and the women of its Central America Network of Women for Social and Economic Justice on a 10-day delegation July 27 to Aug. 6, 2011, to Honduras to see firsthand the impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) five years later.

Until Congress acts on renewing an enhanced Trade Adjustment Assistance Act (TAA) for workers who have lost their jobs because of outsourcing, offshoring and unfair trade deals, the Obama administration will not submit three pending trade deals to Congress, the White House announced yesterday.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement today on the Obama administration’s intention to send a U.S.-Colombia Trade Agreement to Congress for a vote.

We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has signaled that it will move forward to submit the proposed U.S.-Colombia Trade Agreement to Congress for a vote in the near future.  In our view, the situation in Colombia remains unacceptably violent for trade unionists, as well as for human rights defenders and other vulnerable populations. In addition, Colombian workers face enormous and indefensible legal and practical hurdles in exercising their rights to organize unions and bargain collectively.