PAGE 6 | October 16, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Who’s on our side?
By Tom Chamberlain Oregon AFL-CIO President
Why I’m skeptical of the new TPP deal
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was finalized
Oct. 5. Just like we saw this past spring when he
came to Oregon, President Obama and his adminis-
tration are working hard to paint the TPP as a shot-
in-the-arm to our economy; a deal that has strong
protections for workers. Our president’s promises
about this new deal are hard to believe, since nego-
tiations have been held in secrecy and the text of the
agreement has yet to be released to the American
people. If we stand to benefit so greatly, why have
we been kept in the dark?
Nothing that we know about the TPP provides any
assurance our jobs will stay in this country and that
worker protections will have any sort of actual en-
forcement mechanism. We know from firsthand ex-
perience that rules and protections are absolutely
worthless unless they have real enforcement.
And it’s not just worker protections that could suf-
fer if this massive free trade deal passes Congress.
Anything that corporations deem as a threat to profit
could be a target for corporate courts, where taxpay-
ers will foot the bill for ‘lost profits.’ Environmental
SEIU 503’s new nursing home
contract delivers $1.07 raises
Service Employees International
Union Local 503 is crediting its
legislative mobilization for big
wage increases in a set of new
union contracts at nursing homes
in Oregon. The union and em-
ployers joined forces at the State
laws? Consumer protections? Buy American pro-
visions? All could be fair game for lawsuits if the
TPP passes.
These concerns are what pushed us to action last
spring, when over one thousand workers across our
state mobilized to speak out against Fast Track Trade
Promotion Authority for the TPP. We knew then, as
we know now, that working people in Oregon simply
cannot afford another short-sighted free trade agree-
ment. All it takes is a look at our state’s recent his-
tory. Since the passage of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Oregonian wages have
decreased by an average of $3,000 per year.  Paper
mills are closing down and companies like Freight-
liner have left the country. Since the passage of
NAFTA, over 50,000 Oregon workers were certified
by the Department of Labor as having lost their jobs
due to trade. Trade agreements like NAFTA and the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
are removing the middle-class of our economy,
where manufacturing jobs once were prevalent.  Ore-
Capitol, and lawmakers agreed
to increase the Medicaid reim-
bursement formula. That made it
easier for the employers to agree
to a $1.07 an hour raise, effective
Oct. 1. Under the new contract
with the Prestige Care chain for
example, CNAs start at $13.23
and top out at $16.73 after 10
years, while housekeepers start at
$11.20 and rise to $14.70. The
same $1.07 raise applied to sim-
ilar wage scales at other Oregon
nursing home employers: the
Avamere chain, Laurelhurst Vil-
lage, Pinnacle Healthcare,
Dakavia Fernhill Estates, and at
EmpRes Healthcare in Vancouver.
gon has high rates of growth in both low- and high-
wage jobs, but stagnation in the middle. That strati-
fies our economy. Without the tax revenue that is cre-
ated with those middle-class jobs, we can’t fully fund
our schools. We can’t fix our roads and bridges.
President Obama and our leaders in Congress must
understand that we simply cannot afford another
trade deal that benefits multinational corporations,
while middle-class jobs disappear from communities
across Oregon.
That recent history is why I’m skeptical of this
new trade deal. We have been promised that once ne-
gotiations conclude, the full text of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership will be released for scrutiny. It’s our right
to know the details of this agreement and to see if it
lives up to everything that President Obama has said
that it will. I share the opinion of leaders like United
Steelworker President Leo Gerard that this hastily
concluded deal is going to continue an outdated and
disastrous trade agenda that forces American work-
ers to compete in a race-to-the-bottom global econ-
omy.
President Obama, it’s time to put your cards on
the table and let the American people see exactly
what you’ve gotten us into.
Tom Chamberlain is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO,
a 120,000-member-strong federation of labor unions.
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140
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