How AFL–CIO Is Opposing Obama’S Trade Pact
The American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations AFL-CIO’s PACs recently stopped all donations to Congress members’ campaigns as a way to protest Trade Promotion Authority, also known as “fast-track.”
AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka explains that the legislation would also pledge Congress to only give the pact an up-or-down vote, without amending it, once the 12 countries in the TPP reach a final agreement. The legislation would also establish guidelines the Obama administration would have to follow in negotiating.
Trumka explains that the donation freeze is not only about drawing attention to the fight but about making the most of the AFL-CIO’s financial power.
“We did it so we could conserve all the resources that we would normally give out for the fight against fast track and against TPP. So whenever the fight’s over, whatever’s left, we’ll open our PACs up again,” he says, regardless of how Congress ends up voting on TPA.
Trumka adds that he thinks it has been a successful strategy so far: “I think it’s gotten people’s attention that this is a serious issue to us, that we’re taking it seriously and we are going to fight as hard as we can because the stakes are so high and there’s so much for the American worker to lose.”
He also says the AFL-CIO is not opposed to all trade liberalisation; rather, it’s opposed to ones they consider detrimental to workers’ interests: “We’re opposed to bad trade deals, not trade deals.” Trumka explains.
