Labor urges Congress to pump the brakes on fast track

February 23, 2015 by
U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan host a field hearing on trade at Richfield City Hall.

U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan host a field hearing on trade at Richfield City Hall.

Unions are joining a national day of action to stop fast track March 4, and two members of Congress from Minnesota got an earful as to why last week at a field hearing in Richfield.

DFL Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan heard testimony from trade experts, union leaders, business owners and advocates for family farmers, who passionately exhorted the representatives to resist President Obama’s push for fast-track authority to enter trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The Obama administration, looking for ever-elusive common ground with Republicans who took over Congress this year, has moved fast track and the TPP to the top of its agenda. And the president has plenty of powerful allies in that effort, Nolan warned.

“Not only the administration, but the multinational (corporations) are putting a full-court press on this thing,” the 8th District Congressman said. “Every member is getting collared and called and pushed and urged.”

Ellison wryly noted that White House representatives reached out to him as he was leaving Washington to return to the 5th District, letting him know they were aware of the field hearing – and less than pleased with it.

But testimony at the hearing raised several concerns with fast track and the TPP, a looming NAFTA-style trade agreement among 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

An undemocratic notion

By passing fast track, also known as “trade promotion authority,” Congress would limit its own ability to influence trade policy, forcing members to take an up-or-down votes on 1,000-page trade agreements like TPP without offering amendments.

“That’s clearly an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Congress of the United States,” Nolan said.

Worse, members of Congress are severely limited in their ability to monitor or influence the TPP negotiations, Nolan added. Draft agreements and transcripts of the talks are shielded from the media.

“We’re not allowed to even sit in on the negotiations,” Nolan said. “Now, finally, they’re saying they’ll let us look at some of the transcripts, but all the names and all the essential elements are eliminated. It’s kind of like reading the newspaper with a third of every article being eliminated. So it’s not really time very well spent.”

Machinists union representative Rick Ryan (R) testified before a field hearing on fast track and the Trans Pacific Partnership last month. Ryan appeared on a panel with CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer and Bob Ryan of the United Steelworkers.

Machinists union representative Rick Ryan (R) testifies before a field hearing on fast track and the Trans Pacific Partnership. Ryan appeared on a panel with CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer and Bob Ryan of the United Steelworkers.

Profits over people

Leaked drafts of the TPP hint at why Obama’s trade negotiators and hundreds of cleared “advisors” – most of whom represent multinational corporations – might not want the public to see their proposals. Like NAFTA and other free-trade agreements of the last 20 years, TPP appears to give corporations more power over the global economy.

These multinationals have dictated U.S. trade policies at the expense of middle-class wages and jobs for too long, said Mona Meyer, president of the Communications Workers of America’s Minnesota State Council. Look no further than the annual trade deficit of $476 billion.

“The promoters of TPP are again promising job gains,” Meyer said. “But we can do the math, and any job growth with be dwarfed by the flood of jobs that go offshore.”

Trade agreements put manufacturing jobs, in particular, at risk. About 6 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and 60,000 factories have been lost since 2001.

Nilfisk, a company that manufactures industrial floor-cleaning equipment, employed 500 members of the Machinists union at a facility in Plymouth before NAFTA passed. After several rounds of outsourcing, Machinists District 77 representative Rick Ryan said, about 70 workers are left at the plant.

But Ryan warned the TPP goes beyond tariffs and trade.

‘Why are we not at the table?’

“It will affect all sectors of our economy, our courts, our intellectual property rights, labor standards, environmental standards and more – done at the bidding of the world’s largest multinational corporations, further benefiting the 0.1 percent at the expense of the 99.9 percent worldwide,” Ryan said.

How? Dave Levine, CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council, said TPP language could empower corporations to sue local governments that pass “buy local” laws – a school district looking to serve food from area farmers at lunch, for example. It’s one reason the council’s 225,000 member companies oppose fast track and the TPP.

“None of them got a call to be at the table,” he said. “If it’s good for business, why are we not at the table to bring our interests to the proceedings?”

Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, noted that the TPP and other trade agreements create extrajudicial trade tribunals, presided over by judges with deep ties to multinationals, that have jurisdiction over local courts.

Lone Pine Resources, an energy company suing the government of Quebec over its ban on fracking, maintains its headquarters outside Canada “for the sole purpose of being able to challenge the fracking ban via the trade court rather than the judicial system,” Wise said.

Fair trade, not free trade

Ellison and Nolan entered the hearing already opposed to fast track and the TPP. Both insisted they were not against trade, but favored trade policies that strengthen labor and human rights, protect U.S. families us from unsafe imports and promote the export of goods instead of jobs.

“We built this economy with rules and regulations on health and safety, wages and benefits,” Nolan said. “To say that we’re going to allow anyone and everyone to come in here and dump their products on us without any countervailing measures … is to really destroy the essence of who we are and what we’re all about.”

Ellison added, “I believe American workers can compete with any workers in the world” if given a level playing field.

“I know that you guys will fight for democracy,” Wise told the members of Congress. “I wish you the best of luck in convincing your colleagues to do the same.”

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A Model for Disaster: Report details NAFTA’s impact over 20 years

May 1, 2014 by
NAFTA drew protests in Minnesota before its implementation (left), but debate surrounding the model for trade it established 20 years ago continues with the TPP today (right).

NAFTA drew protests in Minnesota before its implementation (left), but debate surrounding the model for trade it established 20 years ago continues today with the TPP (right).

In the early 1990s, Doug Williams was serving as president of Local 1140 of the International Union of Electrical Workers, an industrial union that has since folded into the Communications Workers. Williams and other union activists, particularly in the industrial sector, were in full campaign mode at the time, handing out fliers during shift changes, staging public rallies and demonstrating in the streets.

But it was neither an election nor a strike that had them fired up. Rather, it was a looming trade pact – the first of its kind – with Mexico and Canada. The agreement would do away with most tariffs and economic protections.

“What little we knew about the trade agreement at the time, it did not appear to be something that was going to be of benefit to folks who had to work for a living,” Williams, now on staff with the IUE-CWA, remembered. “We were doing our best to stop what appeared to be a corporate power grab.”

Unions like the IUE joined a broad coalition of environmental, family-farm and other community organizations urging Congress to stop the trade deal. They “tried to engage people around the state,” Williams said, and even worked in collaboration with allies in Mexico and Canada. “Anybody who was willing to participate, we were looking to work with.”

Despite the protests – and over warnings from economists that it would depress wages, uproot jobs and drive farmers off their land – the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect Jan. 1, 1994.

What’s happened in the 20 years since is the subject of a report released in March by the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation. “NAFTA at 20” finds the fears surrounding NAFTA shared by Williams and other trade unionists 20 years ago were largely warranted, and they’ve played out with disastrous implications for workers’ rights, income inequality and democracy in all three nations.

But equally damaging, according to both the AFL-CIO report and trade watchdogs based in Minnesota, is the model for expanded corporate power that NAFTA established – one the U.S. would copy and “enhance” in global trade negotiations over the next two decades. NAFTA remains the template negotiators are working off of in talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the latest – and largest – attempted free-trade deal to date.

“There is no success story for workers to be found in North America 20 years after NAFTA,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. “The NAFTA model focuses on lifting corporations out of reach of democratic governance, rather than solely reducing tariffs. This report should serve as a cautionary tale to the Obama Administration and Congress as they consider negotiating and implementing new trade deals.”

Activists in Northfield protested NAFTA more than 20 years ago in this Union Advocate file photo.

Activists in Northfield protested NAFTA more than 20 years ago in this Union Advocate file photo.

Fears came true

Proponents of NAFTA 20 years ago – like those who defend the agreement today – argued that by reducing tariffs and other barriers to trade, NAFTA would increase trade among the three North American countries. Increased trade, it followed, would result in job growth throughout the free-trade zone. While lobbying Congress to approve the pact, President Bill Clinton claimed NAFTA would create 200,000 new jobs per year in the U.S. alone.

In hindsight, Clinton and other NAFTA backers were only half right.

The volume trade flowing among the U.S., Canada and Mexico surged from $291 billion in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to $1.1 trillion in 2012. Trade patterns, however, shifted dramatically and unequally, with disastrous ramifications for workers in all three countries.

Before NAFTA, the U.S. actually had a small trade surplus with Mexico – meaning it exported more goods than it imported. But that changed quickly after 1994, as the U.S. trade deficit with its NAFTA partners has ballooned to $181 billion.

According to the AFL-CIO report, NAFTA allowed companies to move labor-intensive components of their operations to locations with weak labor laws and lax enforcement of wage, environmental and other standards. Manufacturers took advantage, displacing an estimated 682,900 U.S. jobs to Mexico.

Minnesota has lost about 14,000 jobs to Mexico in the last two decades, Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition Director Josh Wise said.

“And it’s still happening,” Wise added. “A company in Mankato called Midwest Electric just moved last summer. This practice of outsourcing over the last 20 years is actually still happening at a fairly rapid pace.”

Challenge to collective bargaining

With the job losses came a new wave of challenges for unions, which saw their membership rolls decline sharply, as manufacturing has been a traditional base of strength for organized labor.

Rick Ryan, a business representative for District 77 of the International Association of Machinists, can point to several employers that have outsourced Machinists’ jobs to Mexico, including the Danish company Nilfisk, which manufactures industrial floor-cleaning equipment at a facility in Plymouth.

Machinists Local Lodge 1037 used to represent more than 500 Nilfisk workers, Ryan said. After several rounds of outsourcing, only about 80 Machinists are left working in the facility.

“We built a lot of the components for the machines there – we’d take raw sheet metal, form it, bend it, weld it and make the components,” Ryan said. “Now they’ve outsourced all that work to wherever, and they’ve taken and outsourced the assembly of all but the very biggest of these machines down to Mexico.”

The IUE, Williams said, represented workers at 21 facilities in Minnesota before NAFTA; that number is down to 16 today. “They’ve all been impacted by the trade issue,” he said.

Even when employers didn’t pick up and move, they were sure to let workers know it was an option – especially during contract negotiations.

“It has been very difficult to get anywhere near a raise that might get anywhere close to keeping up with the cost of living, and it’s because of this constant threat that if we ask for too much or get too much, they’re going to shut ‘er down and go to wherever – name your country,” Ryan said. “That has put a real hard pressure on wages for our bargaining units.

“I hear it from the members when you talk to them. They want more money, but they’re afraid – the unspoken threat is always there. It’s always in their mind.”

When unions are constantly negotiating concessions – or negotiating severance packages for workers who’ve lost their jobs to trade – it also makes organizing a tough sell, Ryan added

“’Well those union guys, they couldn’t stop the company from moving.’ That’s the kind of thing you hear,” Ryan said. “And when you try to organize, workers say, ‘If we organize they’ll shut it down, they’ll move production.’ And they’re told that by management.”

By weakening the power of unions and incentivizing low wages, NAFTA has contributed to growing income inequality in all three partner countries – despite consistent gains in worker productivity, the AFL-CIO report finds.

web.nafta-streetsCorporate power grab

While workers saw their rights attacked and wages stagnate under NAFTA, corporations saw their powers expand and their profits soar – thanks to the free-trade model established 20 years ago.

Beyond reducing tariffs, NAFTA created new privileges and protections for corporations that allow them to challenge local laws, government regulations or other “barriers to trade” that could interfere with their actual or potential profits. NAFTA established unelected international panels – “unaccountable to the public,” the AFL-CIO report points out – to hear these complaints and award monetary compensation.

It’s called investor-to-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, and according to the AFL-CIO report, it may be NAFTA’s most enduring and troubling legacy, as the practice has been included – and expanded upon – in subsequent free-trade agreements.

“NAFTA set a precedent for how corporations could gain control over writing trade laws,” Wise said. “They realized they could achieve a whole host of deregulation and other legislative victories through trade negotiations that they couldn’t achieve through Congress, and it’s really accelerated the global race to the bottom.”

ISDS empowers foreign investors – mostly multinational corporations – to challenge “buy-local” laws, living-wage provisions and regulations designed to protect consumers, patent holders and the environment.

Exxon Mobil won $60 million from the Canadian government two years ago, arguing that local regulations requiring oil companies to fund research and development in Canada’s poorest provinces constituted a barrier to trade. Mexico had to pay Cargill for laws regulating high-fructose corn syrup.

And who’s on the hook for these monetary damages? The taxpayers. In all, NAFTA governments have paid at least $340 million to “investors” since the agreement took effect.

Of course, similar protections for workers – say, the right to sue a country for establishing barriers to union organizing – are not part of the NAFTA model.

“Unlike the procedures that protect investor rights, the complaint procedures for violations of labor or environmental standards are exceedingly slow and cumbersome, and provide no reasonable possibility of sanctions being imposed for noncompliance,” the AFL-CIO report reads.

Fight for fair trade continues

Frighteningly, the ISDS language written into NAFTA seems tame in comparison to what’s in the Obama administration’s top trade priority, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It expands ISDS protections from traditional goods and services to intellectual property and financial services.

But fair-trade activists celebrated a big victory when Congress refused to grant Obama “fast-track” authority for the TPP and other trade deals – a sign, they hope, that increased public awareness about ISDS and the damaging effects of the NAFTA model are yielding increased public outrage.

Twenty years after taking to the streets to fight NAFTA, labor unions are continuing to partner in the struggle for fair trade.

“When folks are made aware of what’s going on, they seem to be universally opposed to the idea of the TPP,” Williams said. “Labor’s challenge is to recognize it’s going to take more than labor; it requires community partners. We all need to work together to produce a framework for trade that members of the public can see themselves included in.”

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Union members urge Klobuchar to take a stand against Fast Track

January 31, 2014 by
CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer speaks at a trade demonstration outside Sen. Amy Klobuchar's offices in Minneapolis.

CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer speaks at a trade demonstration outside Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s offices in Minneapolis.

Union members today called on U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar to take a stand against efforts in Congress to put job-killing free-trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on the fast track.

Members of the Communications Workers of America marked a worldwide day of action against the TPP – the NAFTA-style trade agreement being negotiated in secret by 12 countries in Asia and the Americas – by leading a demonstration outside Klobuchar’s office in Minneapolis.

“We are not against trade, we are against free trade,” CWA State Council President Mona Meyer told more than a dozen activists who joined the demonstration. “Under the TPP more American jobs would be offshored. Internet freedom would be a joke. Developing countries would lose access to life-saving medicines. Unsafe foods and products would pour into our country.

“And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

[Click here to learn how you can take action against the job-killing TPP free trade agreement.]

CWA members targeted their message at Klobuchar, Meyer said, because the senator voted in favor of free trade agreements with Korea and Panama that “have decimated jobs in America.” Klobuchar also has not taken a stance against the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act, introduced in the U.S. House earlier this month and better known as “Fast Track authorization.”

Unions are part of a broad coalition of groups, including environmental and family-farm organizations, urging members of Congress to reject Fast Track, which would force Congress to take an up-or-down vote on trade agreements without offering amendments.

The complexity of modern trade agreements, Meyer said, requires more – not less – congressional oversight.

“We voted for Sen. Klobuchar to work for us,” Meyer said. “One of her job responsibilities is to negotiate trade agreements, not give up her vote.”

Klobuchar’s Minnesota colleague, Al Franken, was one of 12 senators who signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing concern that Fast Track shirks the responsibility placed on Congress by the Constitution to oversee trade policy.

Reid appears to have heeded their advice, announcing yesterday that he is opposed to Fast Track. Now it’s time for Klobuchar to do the same, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said.

“We need Sen. Klobuchar to speak out and oppose Fast Track and this bad trade deal for workers, farmers and jobs,” he said.

CWA members deliver a letter to Klobuchar's office urging her to take a stand against Fast Track trade authorization.

CWA members deliver a letter to Klobuchar’s office urging her to take a stand against Fast Track trade authorization.

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Senators, fair-trade groups look to slow down Fast Track

January 28, 2014 by
Members of the Communications Workers union led a march against the Trans-Pacific Partnership fair-trade agreement in Minneapolis last year.

Members of the Communications Workers union led a march against the Trans-Pacific Partnership fair-trade agreement in Minneapolis last year.

President Obama is pushing Congress to approve the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act, introduced in the U.S. House earlier this month and better known as “Fast Track authorization.”

Fast Track would force Congress to take an up-or-down vote on trade agreements without offering amendments.

But a large coalition of labor, environmental, family-farm and other grassroots groups are working to slow down fast track, and some powerful allies in Washington are working with them, including U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota.

Franken was one of 12 senators who signed onto a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing concern that Fast Track shirks the responsibility placed on Congress by the Constitution to oversee trade policy.

Two weeks later, the Citizens Trade Campaign unveiled a letter signed by more than 550 organizations – including the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition and the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation – opposing Fast Track.

The complexity of modern trade agreements, the groups say, require more – not less – congressional oversight and citizen input. The letter reads:

Fast Track was designed in the 1970s when trade negotiations were focused on cutting tariffs and quotas. Today’s pending “trade” agreements … are much broader – setting binding policy … relating to patents and copyright, food safety, government procurement, financial regulation, immigration, healthcare, energy, the environment, labor rights and more. Such a broad delegation of Congress’ constitutional authorities is simply inappropriate given the scope of the pending ‘trade’ agreements and the implications for Congress’ core domestic policymaking prerogatives.

Obama has said Fast Track is key to one of his administration’s top trade priorities, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. An agreement with 11 Asian and Latin American countries, the TPP would replicate and expand on previous free-trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has resulted in a net loss of 1 million jobs since its passage 20 years ago.

What’s more, the TPP is being negotiated in secret. Drafts and proposals used during the negotiations are classified, keeping both the media and members of Congress mostly in the dark.

About 600 “cleared advisors” have access to TPP drafts, including representatives of multinational corporations like Walmart, Cargill and Monsanto.

“After decades of devastating job loss, attacks on environmental and health laws and floods of unsafe imported food under our past trade agreements, America must chart a new course on trade policy,” the Citizens Trade Campaign letter says. “To accomplish this, a new form of trade authority is needed that ensures that Congress and the public play a much more meaningful role in determining the contents of U.S. trade agreements.”

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Fair Trade/Union Made Holiday Sale in Minneapolis Dec. 8

November 14, 2013 by

12.8 Holiday Sale Flyer PrinterSkip Black Friday and try a sweatshop-free shopping spree instead with the annual Fair Trade/Union Made Holiday Sale in Minneapolis.

A benefit for the nonprofit Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, the sale will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 8 at the CWA Local 7200 Hall, 3521 E. Lake St.

Vendors include Ten Thousand Villages, Divas Fair Trade, progressive artist Ricardo Levins Morales, Regla De Oro Gallery and the Minnesota-based clothing store Union House.

The Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition unites more than 70 faith, labor, environmental, family farm, consumer and human rights groups to advocate for trade policy that promotes social and environmental justice.

For more details on the event, contact Josh Wise at josh@citizenstrade.org or 952-828-5474.

Click to view the event page on Facebook.

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CWA delegates lead march against Trans-Pacific Partnership

August 20, 2013 by
More than 200 people, many delegates to the CWA District 7 Convention, march along Nicollet Mall to a rally against fast-track approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

More than 200 people, many delegates to the CWA District 7 Convention, march along Nicollet Mall to a rally against fast-track approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

More than 200 activists marched along Nicollet Mall downtown Minneapolis today before rallying in Peavey Plaza against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive, NAFTA-style trade pact being negotiated in secret by the U.S. and 11 other countries with Pacific shorelines.

The Communications Workers of America, holding a district convention in Minneapolis this week, organized the march. Dressed in red CWA shirts, delegates spilled over from the sidewalks into the streets, carrying signs warning that the TPP would put American workers and consumers at risk.

CWA President Larry Cohen addresses the TPP rally in Peavey Plaza.

CWA President Larry Cohen addresses the TPP rally in Peavey Plaza.

“We need fair trade, not fast track,” CWA President Larry Cohen said at the rally, referencing efforts afoot in Congress to force an up-or-down vote on the TPP without amendments. “We have to say this to the White House, loud and clear.”

An agreement as far-reaching as the TPP, which would encompass more than one-third of the world’s trade, warrants vigorous public debate, Cohen added. Yet TPP negotiations are classified, keeping both the media and members of Congress mostly in the dark.

“We’re still waiting,” Cohen said. “When do we get to have a say on these trade deals? When do we get to see this trade deal? We need our say.”

Among the 600 “cleared advisers,” who have greater access to TPP drafts than most members of Congress, are representatives of Verizon – a company whose workers CWA represents across the country. “Can you hear us now?” activists shouted at Verizon’s offices atop a downtown Minneapolis skyscraper.

Union leaders fear the TPP, like NAFTA and other trade agreements before it, will make it easier for multinational corporations to offshore U.S. jobs to countries with lower wages and fewer environmental and safety regulations – especially since it is being negotiated with more corporate input than public oversight.

“Thousands of people are about to lose out big time, but not if we can stop this terrible trade policy,” said Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition.

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Unions see plenty to like in results of 2013 legislative session

May 30, 2013 by
Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Legislative leaders called 2013 the “education session” for the new investments in E-12 students, and a bill to extend union rights to 21,000 child-care providers and home health care workers grabbed headlines as Republicans tried to filibuster it to death.

But the 2013 legislative session yielded many other victories for union members and middle class families. Here’s a look at some of the less-publicized measures passed by labor-endorsed majorities in the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

• Protections for locked-out workers. Included in the jobs bill is a 26-week extension of unemployment-insurance benefits for any worker whose employer locks them out.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers. Minnesota Orchestra musicians remain locked out of their jobs, while St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians and workers at American Crystal Sugar in the Red River Valley recently struck deals to return to work.

Lawmakers viewed the extension of unemployment benefits as a way to mitigate the negative impact lockouts have had on families, communities and businesses.

• Marriage equality. Thousands gathered outside the Minnesota State Capitol on May 14 to watch Dayton sign legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry. Several Minnesota unions supported the legislation as an issue important to their members and as an advance in equal rights for all.

Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, explained the union’s decision to endorse marriage equality: “Same-sex couples pay taxes in Minnesota. They vote here, run businesses here, and serve in our military. They work hard and contribute to our communities, and they have children who deserve to grow up in stable families with married parents.

“Everyone should be able to marry the person they love. No one should be singled out and denied the economic protections and cultural privileges associated with matrimony.”

• Fair trade advisory council. The jobs bill also included reauthorization of the Trade Policy Advisory Council, which saw its authority “sunset” in 2012, but in a new form – one more inclusive of the groups with a stake in international trade policy. The TPAC is required to meet at least once a year and report back to the governor and Legislature about potential U.S. trade agreements and their impact on the state’s economy. The council also may offer draft legislation to implement the recommendations.

Click here to read more about the reauthorized Trade Policy Advisory Council.

• Construction jobs. The Legislature did not pass a large bonding bill, but it did approve much-needed repairs to the Capitol building. Lawmakers also made investments in job creation tools and key construction projects like the Mall of America expansion.

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Lawmakers look to revive, improve Minnesota Trade Advisory Council

April 3, 2013 by
Sen. John Hoffman (right) and Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, provides testimony on the proposed Trade Policy Advisory Council.

Sen. John Hoffman (right) and Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, provides testimony on the proposed Trade Policy Advisory Council.

International trade agreements have a profound effect on Minnesota’s economy. But what effect does Minnesota have on international trade agreements?

Companion bills progressing through the Legislature, House File 883 and Senate File 640, seek to amplify the state’s voice in debate over trade agreements by breathing new life into the Minnesota Trade Policy Advisory Council.

The advisory council, according to Sen. John Hoffman (DFL-Champlin), a co-author of the bill, would “provide assistance and advice to policy makers” about keeping the state’s economy competitive in a changing global economy.

Minnesota has had trade advisory councils in the past; the last saw its authority “sunset” in 2012. Hoffman’s bill, however, would change the makeup of the council to reflect the groups with a stake in international trade policy.

How important is trade policy to Minnesota’s economy? A recent analysis of U.S. Labor Department data showed that 39,797 Minnesota jobs have been displaced by trade since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. That ranks 15th highest in the nation as a percentage of state population.

While previous trade advisory groups have been populated mostly with state agency heads and elected officials, Hoffman’s bill calls for the Trade Policy Advisory Council to include appointees from the business community, organized labor, environmental groups and family farmers, as well as a bipartisan collection of legislators.

Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, envisions the council bringing together “members of groups that have a really vested stake in making sure trade policy works for Minnesota.”

The Fair Trade Coalition, an issue-based umbrella organization of more than 40 labor, family farm, environmental, faith and social justice groups statewide, is backing the legislation, which also charges the advisory council with presenting an annual report to the Legislature that includes policy recommendations and draft legislation.

“This version of the trade advisory council is designed to be more effective than previous versions,” Wise said, adding that in previous years “there was no requirement to meet, no requirement to produce a report. It was, in our opinion, a pretty ineffective group.”

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Fair trade group honors Franken for TPP leadership

January 17, 2013 by
Sen. Al Franken cracks up the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition leadership team while accepting his award. From L to R: coalition chair Kera Peterson, Franken, director Josh Wise and treasurer Russ Hess.

Sen. Al Franken cracks up the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition leadership team while accepting his award. From L to R: coalition chair Kera Peterson, Franken, director Josh Wise and treasurer Russ Hess.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken has been at the forefront of congressional efforts to push the Obama administration to negotiate strong labor standards into the free-trade deal Obama has declared his top trade priority. Those efforts drew recognition yesterday from the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, which presented the senator with its Fair Trade Leadership Award.

The honor goes to elected officials who “demonstrate proactive leadership on fair-trade issues,” coalition director Josh Wise said.

Franken took two actions regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 11-nation trade deal being negotiated out of the public eye, that drew praise from fair-trade advocates in 2012.

First, Franken sent a letter to the U.S. trade representative in charge of TPP talks urging greater transparency in the negotiations.

In November Franken convinced 24 of his Senate colleagues – including Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota – to sign onto a letter urging the president to include specific protections for U.S. workers in the TPP, including enforceable labor standards and “Buy American” provisions.

“That letter was big for us, and Sen. Franken was the co-author,” Wise said.

Franken accepted the award during the coalition’s member assembly at the United Food and Commerical Workers Local 1189 hall in South St. Paul.

The coalition does not give the award annually. The last recipient of the award was U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison in 2010.

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Franken takes the lead in Senate effort to sway Trans-Pacific trade negotiations

December 6, 2012 by
U.S. Sen. Al Franken, shown here at a union rally in St. Paul, co-authored a letter to President Obama urging enforceable protections for workers' rights in the TPP.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken, shown here at a union rally in St. Paul, co-authored a letter to President Obama urging enforceable protections for workers’ rights in the TPP.

As negotiations on the latest U.S.-backed free-trade agreement resumed in Australia this week, U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota led a bipartisan appeal to President Obama, urging his administration to craft an deal that protects American jobs and workers’ rights worldwide.

Franken, a DFLer, joined Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine in authoring a letter to Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement currently encompassing 11 countries and reaching all corners of the Pacific Ocean.

The senators want Obama to ensure the new free-trade agreement is “crafted to maximize good job creation and market expansion while minimizing the incentives for further off-shoring of middle class jobs,” according to the letter (click to download as pdf).

Twenty-two other senators, including Minnesota DFLer Amy Klobuchar, signed onto the letter.

The senators voice specific concern in the letter about including enforceable protections for labor rights in the TPP – a provision that has been lacking in previous free-trade agreements entered into by the U.S.

“A country that denies these rights to workers is providing a hidden subsidy that keeps wages artificially lower than they otherwise would be if workers were free to organize and bargain – a subsidy that makes U.S.-based producers less cost-competitive,” the letter says. “The free exercise of fundamental labor rights is key to improving the standards of living and expanding export markets while labor suppression merely ensures that middle classes – and export markets – will be smaller than they otherwise would be.”

Congress has been mostly shut out of TPP negotiations, now in their 15th round. As a result, letters like Franken’s are as close as federal lawmakers can come to influencing the talks before the TPP lands in Congress for a ratification vote.

Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, which is closely monitoring TPP negotiations, equated the senators’ letter to the committee hearing that takes place before a bill reaches the Senate floor.

Members of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition protested outside Cargill's offices in Hopkins last July, targeting the company for its involvement in secretive TPP negotiations.

Members of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition protested outside Cargill’s offices in Hopkins last July, targeting the company for its involvement in secretive TPP negotiations.

Wise praised Minnesota’s senators for taking a “strong stand for the rights of workers in Minnesota and around the globe.”

Countries currently engaged in TPP talks with the U.S. are Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei.

Although members of Congress – and the media – have been shut out of negotiations, a handful of multinational corporations like Cargill have been included in the talks – a big reason why it is critical for lawmakers like Franken and Klobuchar to speak out, Wise added.

“With countries such as Vietnam, which has been referred to as the ‘low cost labor alternative to China,’ being party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is vitally important that our elected officials do everything in their power to ensure that this massive free-trade deal does not repeat the results of NAFTA and create a race to the bottom for wages and working conditions,” Wise said.

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