TPP Is a Race to The Bottom -- We Need a Race to the Top
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TPP is bad for working families, because, like nearly every other trade agreement that's been negotiated by the U.S. in the past 20 years, TPP isn't concerned with U.S. workers or jobs. Every other nation starts out with jobs and the economy as their priorities. The U.S. unfortunately has a different focus, and looks at trade in terms of national security and global corporate interests, not ensuring the economic well-being of working families.
Here's a good example. The minimum wage in Vietnam, one of the proposed member nations of TPP, is 25 cents an hour. U.S. workers should not compete with workers who earn 25 cents an hour. But multinational corporations, in this continuing race to the bottom, will be happy to send jobs to Vietnam and every other subsistence-wage nation.
It's not just manufacturing jobs. We're talking service sector work, including information technology and tech support jobs. "Buy America" policies, call center legislation to keep good jobs here and stop taxpayer handouts to companies that offshore jobs, environmental standards, and even public health efforts would be disallowed or dramatically weakened.
Foreign firms would be given equal access to bidding on U.S. federal government contracts, and private corporations from other countries would be able to challenge U.S. laws and regulations, including those dealing with telecom, health and the environment, if they think our laws limit their "expected future profits."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-cohen/tpp-is-a-race-to-the-bott_b_4058743.html
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