The TPP would ease trade restrictions among a dozen Pacific Rim nations while lining the pockets of company executives and shareholders. It also would result in lower wages and fewer workplace protections. Activists in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Peru joined Americans in raising awareness in their home countries about this big businesses boondoggle. The secret TPP discussions are set to begin Wednesday in Lima, Peru.
The multinational corporations pushing the TPP hope the U.S. Congress will approve it by year end. That gives us all time to spread our message to our friends, neighbors and countrymen.
Research sponsored by the Teamsters clearly shows the way to talk about the TPP.
If you only have six seconds, here are 10 zingers you should use:
- No one is against trade; we're just against unfair trade.
- It's time to stop letting big corporations ship our jobs overseas and dump our wages and benefits overboard along the way.
- We've seen enough lost jobs, shuttered plants, and hollowed-out communities. It's time to rebuild the middle class, not tear it down, and that means trade deals that benefit working Americans.
- We don't need any more free trade agreements; we need fair trade agreements.
- No one doubts the value of trade, but not if it puts American workers at a disadvantage and American consumers at risk.
- I'm all for open markets, as long as that doesn't mean trading good American jobs and benefits and high-quality, safe American products for lost jobs, lower wages, and foods that make our families sick.
- When we negotiate a trade agreement, every provision should benefit working families, not big corporations.
- The last thing we need is to pass a massive new expansion of free trade from Mexico to China with a new trade agreement. It's time to make things in America again.
- If our trade agreements destroy American manufacturing, then there are fewer firms paying the taxes that support our schools and the construction of highways and hospitals, and fewer well-paid workers who have money to spend at local restaurants and stores.
- It's time to stop letting politicians in the pocket of big business continue to pass "free trade" deals that don't benefit working families, and time to start rebuilding the middle class.
