Act Now: Tell Congress a NAFTA Replacement Must End Job Outsourcing and Protect the Environment!
Too many Americans haven’t seen a pay increase in years and can’t find better-paying jobs in part because of corporate-rigged trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Now NAFTA is being renegotiated, and the deadline is looming. The stakes could not be higher for workers and the environment throughout North America.
NAFTA grants corporations vast new privileges that make it easier to outsource jobs while empowering them to attack the environmental and health laws on which we all rely.
NAFTA’s lack of labor or environmental standards means wages in Mexico are now below those in China. Under NAFTA, U.S. firms that outsource production to Mexico can pay industrial workers less than $2 an hour and dump toxins with impunity. And then ship the products back here for sale under NAFTA's favorable terms.
To date, almost one million American jobs have been certified by the government as lost to NAFTA, with more being outsourced every week.
Already, multinational corporations have grabbed $392 million in taxpayer money using NAFTA’s infamous Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals.
ISDS empowers corporations to sue governments before a panel of three corporate lawyers. These lawyers can order taxpayers to pay the corporations unlimited sums of money, including for the loss of their expected future profits.
The multinational corporations only need to convince the lawyers that a law protecting public health, a food safety regulation or a pro-environment court ruling violates their special NAFTA rights. The corporate lawyers' decisions are not subject to appeal.
As representatives from Mexico, the United States and Canada rush to finish NAFTA renegotiations, we must fight for a deal that puts people and the planet above corporate profits.
Sign This Petition to Congress Now:
We, the undersigned, demand that any NAFTA replacement must …
- Eliminate 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.
- And add strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement to raise wages and strengthen lax environmental rules in Mexico to prevent companies from moving jobs to pay workers a pittance and dump toxins.
Partnering Organizations
CAF-People’s Action
Citizens Trade Campaign
Corporate Accountability
CREDO Action
Daily Kos
Demand Progress
Democracy for America
Food & Water Watch Action
Friends of the Earth Action
Good Jobs Nation
Green America
Just Foreign Policy
Open Media
Progressive Caucus Action Fund
Public Citizen
Sierra Club
Supporting Organizations
Alliance for Democracy
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Connecticut Fair Trade Coalition
Franciscan Action Network
Our Revolution