The Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Robert Scott has issued a report on the early results of the U.S.-Korea trade agreement (often called KORUS) . It’s not good for U.S. workers, who have already lost about 40,000 jobs because of the increasing trade deficit with Korea.
In an eye-opening piece on how high-level politics play out behind the closed doors most of us never got to peek behind, National Journal reporter Chris Frates tracks the plays and the players who put together the just-passed, job-killing Korea, Colombia and Panama trade deals .
BREAKING—The Senate tonight passed all three trade deals. The Senate votes were 83-15 for Korea, 66-33 for Colombia and 77-22 for Panama.
B REAKING—The House tonight passed the Colombia (262-167), Korea (278-151) and Panama (300-129) trade deals. Read more from the Los Angeles Times .
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the trade deals that Congress is set to vote on later today are “the wrong medicine at the wrong time.”
Both the U.S. House and the Senate are expected to vote today on a trio of job-killing trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama. There’s still time to call your representative at 1-800-718-1008 and your senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to vote “No” on the three trade deals.
Colombia’s Labor Action Plan that was billed as a major step to ending violence against trade unionists and protecting the right of workers to come together in unions “has failed to achieve improvements on the ground for Colombia’s working families,” a new AFL-CIO report finds.
Virginia Hewitt has seen firsthand how bad trade deals kill good jobs. Hewitt worked for 14.5 years at the Salina, Kan., Hawker Beechcraft plant building private jets. But little more than a year ago, she and most of the nearly 600 Machinists ( IAM ) Local 7090 members saw their jobs shipped to Mexico.
Today, you can take action to stop Congress from approving job-killing trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama and tell Republicans and Democrats to put Americans back to work.
Congress will soon consider three so-called free trade agreements (FTAs) between the United States and Korea, Colombia and Panama. Yet because these agreements do not include sufficient protections for workers, passage of these pacts would be a job-killing move at a time when more than 26 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work.
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.
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.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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