Teamsters Union Says Good Riddance to Fast Track Trade Authority

This weekend, President Bush's "Fast Track" trade negotiating authority expires for good. It has been a long and difficult five years for workers everywhere. With the expiration of Fast Track, perhaps this finally means that we can move in an entirely new direction on our trade and globalization policies.

Since Fast Track, trade negotiations have been accelerated to an alarming speed, denying legislators and the public the appropriate time to consider the serious ramifications of these agreements. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has used Fast Track to push too many job-killing, NAFTA-style trade agreements.

Such agreements have included the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Chile, Singapore, Morocco, Australia, Bahrain and Oman. Just a few weeks ago, the State Department announced that Bahrain and Oman have been added to its list of worst offenders in failing to suppress human trafficking and forced labor -- which is "a modern day form of slavery." The fact that under Fast Track we passed free trade agreements with these countries is further evidence that these FTAs are nothing more than a one-way street to the bottom for workers everywhere.

Such misguided trade policies have exacerbated stagnant wages and growing job insecurity in the United States. We have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2001, many to offshore outsourcing, while an increasing number of white-collar service-sector jobs are also at risk. At the same time, our trade deficit has ballooned to nearly $800 billion. For the USTR to call for more Fast Trade deals is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the damage that Fast Track has done is not entirely over. Still lingering is the Peru, Panama, Colombia, and the South Korea free trade agreements. This Saturday, as the Fast Track clock expires, the terribly negotiated South Korea FTA will be signed.

The Teamsters Union strongly opposes ALL of these job-killing trade deals. Until the U.S. trade model and policies begin to focus on job creation here at home, we will continue to oppose such deals.

I also would like to add that it is offensive and insulting to trade unionists that the Bush administration and Congress would even consider an FTA with Colombia. We should not be entering into a new free trade agreement with a government that allows workers who fight for their right to organize and for better wages to be killed with impunity.

Rather than staggering blindly into extending Fast Track, our nation needs to regain our economic footing. We must have a real discussion about the real costs and impacts our trade policies have had for working men and women here at home and abroad. We need to pass China currency legislation such as Ryan- Hunter and Stabenow-Bunning. We need to stop the skyrocketing trade deficit that we are facing. We need to promote and encourage more Buy-America procurement policies. We need to pass anti-offshoring legislation. The list goes on. Absent real action and an honest assessment of our trade agreements and policies, we will undoubtedly find ourselves in an even worse predicament 10 years from now.

And so on June 30th, the Teamsters Union celebrates the end to this terrible process, and we look forward to working with members of Congress on a new economic trade model that creates jobs at home and lifts up workers everywhere. International Brotherhood of Teamsters