[CTC] Last call on important NAFTA sign-on letter

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Dear friends:

We’ve reached over 875 groups on the #ReplaceNAFTA Organizational Sign-On Letter below.  Can you please help us recruit additional organizational signers before this Friday’s deadline?

If you haven’t yet, please add your organization onto the letter now. <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrUHn0CXUKL_z2H-lbWPLQB5cI6Y8QWcKdcDlaQRCjhikkZA/viewform?c=0&w=1>

If your organization has already signed on, please forward this email to colleagues and appropriate listserves encouraging others to join.

An incredibly strong, cross-sector collection of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith and human rights organizations is already on the letter.  A sampling of them are listed below.  Please help spread the word about to make this even stronger.  And, if you haven’t already, please sign your organization onto NAFTA letter below today <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrUHn0CXUKL_z2H-lbWPLQB5cI6Y8QWcKdcDlaQRCjhikkZA/viewform?c=0&w=1>.  

Many thanks,

Arthur Stamoulis, Executive Director
CITIZENS TRADE CAMPAIGN

Online: citizenstrade.org <http://citizenstrade.org/>
Twitter: @citizenstrade



#ReplaceNAFTA Organizational Sign-On Letter
To add your organization, please fill out this online form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrUHn0CXUKL_z2H-lbWPLQB5cI6Y8QWcKdcDlaQRCjhikkZA/viewform?c=0&w=1> by Friday, March 16th


Dear Senator / Representative:

Too many Americans haven’t seen a pay increase in years and can’t find better-paying jobs in part because of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  

Instead of leveling the playing field, NAFTA makes it easier for big corporations to outsource jobs to Mexico to take advantage of poverty wages and lax environmental standards.  To date, more than 930,000 American jobs have been certified as lost to NAFTA under just one narrow government program.  Meanwhile, Mexican median wages are down 9 percent in real terms since NAFTA and below $2 per hour, while American wages have remained flat.

The status quo of NAFTA helping corporations outsource more middle-class American jobs every week, while exposing critical health and environmental safeguards to attack in investor-state tribunals, is obviously unacceptable.  But simply withdrawing from NAFTA is not enough to reverse the pact’s economic and environmental damage.  

We ask that you please demand that NAFTA be replaced with a fair new trade agreement that, among other things, meets the following basic criteria:

Stop outsourcing and raise wages by adding strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement.  Congress must not vote on a NAFTA replacement until each party adopts, maintains, implements — and enforces — domestic laws that provide the labor rights and protections included in the International Labor Organization’s Core Conventions and policies that fulfill the Paris climate accord and other core multilateral environmental agreements. New measures must specifically help raise wages, reduce pollution and put an end to existing “protection contracts” that lack majority support of the workers they cover. New tools must be added to ensure that independent monitoring and enforcement will occur, and preferential market access must be conditioned on sustained evidence of on-the-ground improvements, with social and environmental dumping tariffs imposed for backsliding. 
Eliminate NAFTA terms that promote the outsourcing of Americans’ jobs.  This means eliminating the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system and the special investor protections it enforces that make it less risky and cheaper to outsource jobs, and that also empower corporations to attack environmental and health laws before tribunals of three corporate lawyers and get unlimited payouts of our tax dollars.  Likewise, NAFTA procurement rules limiting the ability to direct our tax dollar investments must also be eliminated to further the creation and retention of American jobs by promoting the purchase of pro-worker, pro-environment American goods.
Protect consumers and the environment and ensure a level playing field for U.S. businesses, farmers and workers by ending NAFTA rules that threaten food safety and food labeling.  Imported food must be required to meet U.S. safety standards, not the safety and inspection standards of Mexico and Canada, and enhanced border inspection must be added.  The right to require food labeling — including mandatory country-of-origin labels for meat and dolphin-safe labels for tuna — must be explicitly affirmed and protected so consumers can make informed choices.  
Make medicine more affordable by eliminating NAFTA rules that increase costs.  No terms that extend beyond the existing World Trade Organization patent rules or that limit countries’ abilities to negotiate lower prices for government health programs like Medicare or Medicaid are acceptable. 
Ensure a fair playing field for American job creation by adding strong, enforceable disciplines against currency manipulation and misalignment.  New binding disciplines against currency manipulation and misalignment must be added to NAFTA’s core text along with a commitment to cooperate tri-nationally to confront harmful currency manipulation and misalignment by trading partners around the world. 
Create American jobs and reinforce improved labor and environmental standards by strengthening “rules of origin” and stopping transshipment. Strengthened rules of origin to incentivize production in North America in general and the United States in particular must go hand-in-hand with significantly improving labor rights, wages, environmental standards and enforcement to effectively address American job loss and wage stagnation.
Protect our health and the environment by requiring that all imported goods and all services and service providers meet U.S. standards and add a specific safeguard for domestic environmental, health, labor and other public interest policies.   A broad “carve-out” must be added that exempts from the entire revised agreement’s terms all non-discriminatory domestic policies so as to provide a strong deterrent and defense to “trade” challenges to policies that governments use to protect workers, promote public health and highway safety, tackle climate change and otherwise advance broadly-shared goals. 
Boost the rural economy by overhauling NAFTA rules that harm family farmers.  The right to establish domestic farm policies that ensure that farmers are paid fairly for their crops and livestock must be safeguarded. NAFTA rules that forbid countries to establish and implement many farm and food policies — such as inventory management, strategic food reserves, import surge protections and other anti-dumping mechanisms — must be eliminated. Maintaining market access and avoiding market disruption is also important. New tariffs on U.S. exports could cause serious harm to fragile family farms already suffering from below cost of production prices, as well as to other sectors of employment relating to food production.  
The NAFTA renegotiation process must be transparent and participatory.  The original NAFTA was negotiated in a closed-door process dominated by hundreds of corporate trade advisors and, to date, much the same process has been used for NAFTA renegotiations.  Moving forward, the public and all members of Congress must be invited to help formulate U.S. positions and comment on draft U.S. proposals. And negotiated texts must be made publicly available, with opportunity for comment, after each negotiating round. 
In the absence of a binding and easily-enforced agreement based on these critical measures, Mexican workers will continue to be horribly exploited, American jobs will continue to be outsourced, the environment will continue to be degraded and the wages for workers in all three NAFTA countries will continue to decline.  

We’re counting on your leadership in support of fair trade.

Sincerely,

CURRENT SIGNERS INCLUDE (among hundreds of others!)
Citizens Trade Campaign
350.org <http://350.org/>
AFL-CIO
All-Creatures.org <http://all-creatures.org/>
Alliance for Democracy
Alliance for Global Justice
Alliance for Retired Americans
American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
American Sustainable Business Council
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers (AWPPW)
Backbone Campaign
Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers and Grainmillers International Union
BlueGreen Alliance
Campaign for America's Future
Care2
Carpenters Industrial Council
Center for Environmental Health
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)
Christian Crusade
Coalition of Labor Union Women
CODEPINK
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Communities and Postal Workers United
Community Food and Justice Coalition
Community Services Unlimited Inc.
Corporate Accountability
Daily Kos
Doctors for Global Health
Earth Island Institute
Earthworks
Equal Exchange
Ethix Ventures, Inc
Fair World Project
Family Farm Defenders
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
Farm Women United
Food & Water Watch
Food Chain Workers Alliance
Free Speech For People
Friends of the Earth
Friendship Office of the Americas
Global Exchange
GMO Free USA
Green America
Greenpeace USA
Health Alliance International
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
Hermandad Mexicana “la original”
Holy Cross International Justice Office
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Institute for Policy Studies, Global Economy Project
International Association of Machinists
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Center for Technology Assessment
International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers
International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)
International Marine Mammal Project
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America
IUE-CWA
Jobs With Justice
Just Foreign Policy
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA)
Labor Network For Sustainability
League of Women Voters of the United States
Living Economies Forum
Mangrove Action Project
Moana Nui
Move To Amend
Movement Strategy Center
National Association of Consumer Advocates
National Association of Letter Carriers
National Council of Gray Panthers Networks
National Family Farm Coalition
National Farmers Union
National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association
National Lawyers Guild, International Committee
National Nurses United
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance
Organic Consumers Association
Our Revolution
Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples (PLANT)
Peace Action
People Demanding Action
People for the American Way
Pesticide Action Network North America
Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign
Popular Resistance
Power Shift Network
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Presente.org <http://presente.org/>
Pride at Work
Progressive Congress Action Fund
Progressive Democrats of America
Public Citizen
R-CALF USA
R.I.S.K. Consultancy (Rebutting Industry Science with Knowledge)
Rachel Carson Council
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Information Centre
Real Food Challenge
Refuge Ministries Tampa Bay International
RootsAction.org <http://rootsaction.org/>
Rural Coalition
Seeding Sovereignty
Sequoia ForestKeeper®
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Shifting Patterns Consulting
Sierra Club
Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Congregational Leadership
Sisters of the Holy Cross Congregation Justice Office
Stand.earth
Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees
The Berry Center
The Borneo Project
The Main Street Alliance
The New 21st Century Movement Association
The Oakland Institute
The Pluralism Project
The Rick Smith Show
Trade for People and Planet
Trade Justice Alliance
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
UNITE HERE!
United Brotherhood of Carpenters
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Sludge Free Alliance
United Steelworkers (USW)
Universal Health Care Action Network
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)
US Human Rights Network
US-El Salvador Sister Cities
Utility Workers Union of America
Witness for Peace
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom
And many, many others!
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