Act Now: Tell Congress a NAFTA Replacement Must End Job Outsourcing and Protect the Environment!

Too many Americans haven’t seen a real pay increase since the eighties 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.

Contacting Arizona Senator Flake:

https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-jeff

Washington, D.C. Office
P: 202-224-4521
F: 202-228-0515

Phoenix Office
P: 602-840-1891
F: 602-840-4092

Tucson Office
P: 520-575-8633
F: 520-797-3232

Senators contact information: 

https://contactingcongress.org

Ask your Congress Members to make sure that the NAFTA replacement:

• Eliminates 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 adds 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.