From the Citizens Trade Campaign (http://www.citizenstrade.org):
The White House just notified Congress of its plans to sign a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — and civil society groups are warning that the current proposal is still not strong enough to protect jobs, raise wages, defend human rights and protect the environment.
TAKE ACTION: Please urge your Congress members to make clear that they will only support a pact that adds strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement and that ends NAFTA’s outsourcing incentives at http://org.salsalabs.com/o/1034/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=23244.
For over a year, we’ve been pushing trade negotiators to deliver a comprehensive NAFTA replacement that finally puts the interests of working families and healthy communities in all three countries ahead of corporate profits.
Labor unions that have been briefed on portions of the NAFTA renegotiation’s current “agreement in principle” have warned that, while there has been progress in several areas, enforcement mechanisms for the proposal’s labor standards are seriously lacking. That needs to be addressed if a new deal is going to stop outsourcing and the ongoing race-to-the-bottom in wages.
Environmental groups have similar concerns about the enforceability of environmental terms, as well as reported handouts for oil and gas corporations that could prolong NAFTA’s threats to our air, water and climate.
And the secretive process that the administration has chosen to employ in the negotiations makes it near-impossible for the public to know what has and hasn’t been agreed upon thus far in other important areas, including access to medicine, food safety and more.
Negotiators will be working towards a final text over the coming weeks. The public deserves to know what has already been proposed in our names, and to weigh in on all issues in the ongoing negotiations.
The details of any ultimate deal obviously matter tremendously. Each day, NAFTA continues to destroy livelihoods, drive down wages and harm the environment in all three countries. People in the United States, Mexico and Canada deserve a comprehensive NAFTA replacement that provides real relief.
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