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Fury Over ICE Brutality and Lawlessness Fuels Push for Minnesota ‘General Strike’
Organizers hope to have "tens of thousands of workers in the street in the Twin Cities" for the day of action.
Jan 22, 2026
Momentum for a planned general strike-like event in Minnesota is building amid increasing outrage over the actions of federal immigration officials in the state.
Schools and businesses across Minnesota are planning to stay closed on Friday as part of the "ICE Out! Statewide Shutdown" day of protest.
The event was first announced last week by a broad coalition of local labor unions and faith leaders with the goal of forcing federal immigration agents to leave their cities and towns.
Bashir Garad, chairman of the Karmel Mall Business Association and the owner of a Minneapolis-based travel company, told the Minnesota Star-Tribune that the planned shutdown is gaining "momentum and support from a wide variety of communities."
"Already, thousands of businesses have declared that they will shut down this Friday," Garad added, "and tens of thousands of workers and students have pledged to march in the streets, rather than go to work or school."
Hundreds of Minnesota businesses have announced plans to shut their doors so far, according to running list posted by Bring Me the News, which also lists dozens of other businesses that are remaining open while vowing to donate at least a portion of sales on Friday to nonprofit groups such as the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund.
Keiran Knutson, president of Communications Workers of America Local 7520, told Payday Report that organizers are hoping to "have tens of thousands of workers in the street in the Twin Cities" protesting against the actions of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In addition to the events taking place in Minnesota, Payday Report has published a map showing solidarity strikes occurring in 120 different cities across the US.
The planned Friday strike is the culmination of weeks of resistance against federal agents carried out by Minnesota residents.
In a Wednesday thread posted on Bluesky, author Margaret Killjoy explained how people throughout Minneapolis have banded together to track the movements of ICE and CBP agents and to provide help to their immigrant neighbors.
"First thing this morning, I saw cars following an ICE vehicle down the street, honking at it," she wrote. "Later, we didn't drive more than three blocks before we found people defending a childcare facility... Half the street corners around here have people—from every walk of life, including Republicans—standing guard to watch for suspicious vehicles, which are reported to a robust and entirely decentralized network that tracks ICE vehicles and mobilizes responders."
Taken as a whole, Killjoy said that she had "never seen anything approaching this scale" of what activists have pulled off in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis-based attorney Will Stancil, who has become one of the most high-profile legal observers following and documenting actions by ICE and CBP agents, argued on Thursday that the Trump administration is committing deliberately cruel acts with the hope of inciting violence.
In particular, Stancil pointed to federal agents' decision to abduct a 5-year-old child and use him as bait to lure out and detain his immigrant father as a deliberately provocative action.
"They clearly believed that Minneapolis would riot after they killed one of us," Stancil wrote, in reference to Renee Good, a Minneapolis resident who was gunned down by an ICE agent earlier this month. "We didn’t, we organized. We followed them, we monitored them. We alerted our neighbors. We fought them in the courts. And now they’re desperate, so they’re brutalizing us, without a hint of legitimate government purpose."
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Free Press Defenders Rip Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'Bullsh*t' Attack on Public Broadcasters
"Elon Musk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to defund Sesame Street and dismantle PBS and NPR," said one Democratic congressman. "Not on our watch. Fire Elon Musk, and save Elmo."
Mar 26, 2025
Progressives roundly ridiculed U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday after the serial conspiracy theorist made baseless claims that National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service are "radical left-wing echo chambers" with a "communist agenda" and called for their defunding.
"Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"
Greene (R-Ga.)—who chairs the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency (DOGE, but not part of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency)—convened the hearing, titled "Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable," to examine alleged "biased news" and whether American taxpayers "will continue funding these leftist media outlets."
"After listening to what we've heard today, we will be calling for the complete and total defund and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," the congresswoman told
NPR CEO Katherine Maher and the PBS CEO Paula Kerger during her closing remarks, referring to the nonprofit that helps fund PBS and NPR.
"Here's how it works: In America, every single day—every single day—private businesses operate on their own, without government funding," she added. "We believe you all can hate us on your own dime."
PBS gets about 16% of its funding from federal sources. For NPR, the figure is around just 1%.
Greene—who has amplified conspiracy theories including QAnon, Pizzagate, the 9/11 "hoax," government involvement in mass shootings, "Jewish space lasers" causing wildfires, the U.S. government controlling the weather, and the "stolen" 2020 presidential election—made more blatantly false claims during Wednesday's hearing, including that PBS used "taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical left positions like featuring a drag queen" on one of its children's programs. This never happened.
Nevertheless, Greene used props including a blown-up photo of drag queen Lil' Miss Hot Mess, a children's book author and Drag Queen Story Hour board member, whom the congresswoman called a "monster," while baselessly accusing Maher and Kerger of "grooming and sexualizing" children.
Another Republican member of the panel, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky, appeared to not understand the difference between an editorial—an opinion article—and the the work and standards of media editors:
oh my god -- Comer thinks "editorial standards" literally refers to standards for editorials and is corrected by the NPR head
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— Aaron Rupar ( @atrupar.com) March 26, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Democrats on the DOGE subcommittee pushed back against the attacks by Greene and other Republicans on the panel. Mocking Greene's assertion that PBS and NPR have a "communist agenda" and referring to one of the most beloved characters on the long-running children's show Sesame Street, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked Kerger a McCarthyesque question: "Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party? A yes or no."
Kerger answered "no," prompting Garcia to retort: "Now, are you sure, Ms. Kerger? Because he's obviously red... He also has a very dangerous message about sharing. And helping each other; he's indoctrinating our kids that sharing is caring. Now maybe he's part of a major socialist plot and maybe that's why the chairwoman is having this hearing today."
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) responded to a false assertion by hearing guest Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation—the main force behind Project 2025, the plan for a far-right overhaul of the federal government that includes defunding public broadcasters—as well Musk's glaring conflicts of interest by referring to a popular porcine protagonist of Muppets fame.
"To your knowledge, has Miss Piggy ever been caught trying to funnel billions of dollars in government contracts to herself and to her companies?" Casar said.
At the end of his remarks, the progressive lawmaker implored Greene to "leave Elmo alone" and instead bring in Musk, the de facto head of the other DOGE, for questioning. Musk, the world's richest person, and President Donald Trump support defunding public broadcasters.
In typically fiery fashion, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) told Greene and Republicans that "free speech is not about what y'all want somebody to say, and the idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bullshit!"
Tim Karr, the senior director of strategy and communications at the media reform group Free Press, told Common Dreams after the hearing that Greene's "bogus attack against public media is a blatant attempt to further weaken the sort of journalism that questions the corruption and cruelty of the Trump administration."
"This is not about saving taxpayer dollars or based on any genuine concern about whether there's too much bias on public media. It's a blatant attempt to undermine independent, rigorous reporting on the Trump administration," Karr argued.
"Greene may not like public media—and that's no surprise given that she's no fan of journalism that holds public officials and billionaires accountable," he continued. "But she and her Republican colleagues are far out of step with the American people and their needs. Communities all across the country rely on their local public radio and TV stations to provide trustworthy news reporting and a diversity of opinions."
"In every survey, the American public indicates it wants more support for public and community media, not less," Karr added. "Unfortunately, President Trump and his cronies in Congress have instead tried to zero out funding for public media. They have repeatedly failed because millions of viewers and listeners oppose them and instead believe that support for public media is taxpayer money well spent."
On Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and Reporters Without Borders sent a joint letter urging Greene's committee "to approach its examination of public broadcasting with the understanding that press freedom is not a partisan issue, rather a vital part of American democracy."
The attack on @pbs.org and @npr.org is an attack on journalism. The administration is just going after them first because public funding makes them the low-hanging fruit. We're proud to partner on this letter with CPJ and @rsf.org. cpj.org/2025/03/cpj-...
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— Freedom of the Press Foundation ( @freedom.press) March 25, 2025 at 9:07 AM
"The tone and conduct of the proceedings matter," the groups' letter asserts. "The American public deserves access to quality, independent journalism, regardless of geography, income, creed, or political views. Public broadcasting delivers on this vital need by providing high-quality, fact-based reporting to the American public, including underserved communities across the nation."
"Congressional scrutiny of public broadcasting must not undermine the ability of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal," the groups stressed. "Otherwise, a dangerous precedent will be set that could further erode trust in the media and undermine press freedom more broadly."
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is sharing a petition telling Congress to protect public broadcasting.
"Republican leaders in Congress and the Trump administration are following the Project 2025 playbook and trying to shut down funding for independent public television and radio stations," the petition states. "Many CWA members work at these locally owned stations and play a crucial role in keeping our communities informed. Without public television and radio stations, we will lose access to critical local news and programming."
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On Labor Day, Champions of Working Class Vow to Defeat Trump
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," said a pair of supporters.
Sep 02, 2024
With the Labor Day holiday as a backdrop, U.S. union leaders on Monday reiterated their message that a Democratic administration led by Vice President Kamala Harris would offer far better policies for workers than a Republican one with former President Donald Trump at the helm.
Echoing Harris' resonant "We are not going back" campaign slogan, Communications Workers of America president Claude Cummings Jr. said that "we are not going back because we have the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris, a true champion for working people, who has a vision for the future where we all have more control over our own lives, not less."
"Last month, as our members at AT&T Southeast were preparing to go on strike, Donald Trump laughed with notorious union buster Elon Musk about firing striking workers," he continued. "Today that would be illegal, but if he's elected president, Trump will have the plan and the power to take us back to a time when it wasn't."
"Donald Trump's allies, including many people he appointed to serve in his administration, want to take us back to the days before the NLRA," he contended, referring to the landmark National Labor Relations Act signed into law by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. "Their dangerous, extremist agenda, detailed in a handbook known as Project 2025, calls for increasing corporate control over workers. They want to appoint [National Labor Relations Board] members who will stop enforcing large parts of the NLRA, including the ban on company unions."
Harris, who was in Detroit Monday, said: "On Labor Day, we honor workers, unions, and the entire labor movement fighting for fair wages, good benefits, and safer working conditions for all. As president, I will always stand with workers, because when unions are strong, the middle class is strong. And when the middle class is strong, America is strong."
In her second annual "State of the Unions" address, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, highlighted the importance of organized labor in November's election. Shuler noted that 1 in 5 voters in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and, Minnesota is a union member, and that recent polling shows Harris with a 15-point lead over Trump among union voters.
"Union workers are growing our power in this country in a way that we haven't seen in a generation. In November, that power could win the election for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz," she said, referring to the Minnesota governor who is the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
"We can run up the margins where it counts," Shuler added. "When you ask a union member who their most trusted source in the world is on politics, it's not their friends, family, or loved ones—it's their fellow union member. There is no question that the road to the White House runs through America's union halls."
While numerous unions have endorsed Harris, Trump has struggled in his efforts to court organized labor, despite strong support among rank-and-file workers. Last week, members of the International Association of Fire Fighters booed GOP vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio after he claimed that he was part of the"most pro-worker Republican ticket in history."
While support for unions in the United States is at a seven-decade high, union membership remains at an all-time low, the result of more than a century of efforts by capitalist interests and the politicians they influence to weaken organized labor. One way they've done this is by McCarthyite purges of communists and socialists, traditionally the strongest champions for working people, from union ranks.
Today, labor leaders overwhelmingly concur which of the two major parties offers workers a better deal—even as it attacks democracy by fighting to exclude pro-worker competitors to its left.
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," Service Employees International Union president April Verrett and Democracy Alliance president Pamela Shifman said in an opinion piece published by The Hill on Monday.
"As we look ahead, the choice we face in this election couldn't be more stark," they wrote. "One path leads to a brighter, more inclusive future for all workers—a future where economic, gender, and racial justice go hand in hand. The other path seeks to turn back the clock, dismantling the progress we've made and putting corporate interests ahead of working families."
Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez—the late grandfather of Harris' campaign manager—in 1962, on Monday published a Univision opinion piece in which she argued that "this election marks a pivotal moment in our history."
"Each of us will have a choice to make about which direction we want our country to go," she said. "Donald Trump despises Latinos, workers, and immigrants and wants to turn back the clock to a time before many of us had full rights and freedoms, when the rich did well while the middle class was left behind. We cannot go back!"
"I choose to go forward, into the future," Huerta continued. "A future that makes room for all Latino families. A future where our middle class is strong, our freedoms are secure, and our democracy is sound. That's what Vice President Harris is fighting for. And that's why I'm all-in to elect Vice President Harris the next president of the United States... ¡Sí se puede!"
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Verizon Accused of Deceiving Customers as Historic Strike Perseveres
Verizon's fiber-optic cable policy proves 'only profits—not customer service—motivates this company,' says union
May 03, 2016
Three weeks after roughly 40,000 Verizon workers began a historic work stoppage to protest the telecom company's "corporate greed," the union behind the strike joined public interest groups in charging Verizon with "systematically deceiving customers" as part of its push to transfer users from copper telephone wires to fiber service.
The informal complaint (pdf) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was filed Tuesday by Common Cause, Public Knowledge, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and several other groups.
It charges that the internal Verizon policy known as "Fiber Is the Only Fix" both deceives customers and constitutes "unjust and unreasonable practices" that violate federal law. It also alleges that Verizon has given retail customers as little as 15 days' notice before ending their copper service when FCC rules say they must be given at least 90 days' notice.
A press statement from CWA explained:
When a "Fiber is the Only Fix" customer calls in with trouble on their line--such as no dial tone or noise on the line--Verizon creates a "ghost" service order to transfer the customer to fiber service. The service order is called a "ghost" service order because the customer is not told about it.
Verizon then dispatches a technician on the ghost service order. The technician is instructed not to discuss the purpose of the dispatch prior to arriving at the customer's location. At that time, the technician informs the customer that Verizon no longer repairs copper lines, and the customer must upgrade to fiber. If the customer does not want to upgrade to fiber, Verizon will not allow the technician to repair the copper line and advises the customer that Verizon will disconnect the line.
A Verizon official confirmed to the New York Times that "the company writes up a 'ghost' service order to switch a customer's service before it sends a technician to investigate a problem. The company even uses a ghost icon that resembles a character in the Pac-Man video games to indicate that the company hopes to make the switch."
Tuesday's complaint is the latest salvo in the public relations campaign against Verizon, which is accused of shipping jobs overseas, strong-arming organized labor, and failing to provide high-quality service.
"By instituting this reprehensible policy to deceive customers, Verizon executives proved that only profits--not customer service--motivate this company," said CWA president Chris Shelton, referring to Fiber is the Only Fix.
"Verizon executives violated the law and are forcing our members to join in a program they strongly object to," Shelton said. "With this complaint filed today at the FCC, we are standing up for our customers, just as we are standing up for them every day on picket lines from Massachusetts to Virginia."
Last week, YouGov's Brand Index indicated that as a result of the strike, "consumer perception of the telecom giant has fallen to a three-year low," as TIME magazine reported.
The deterioration in service has become so significant that New York State's Public Service Commission has convened a formal hearing to investigate problems across that state. At the same time, Pennsylvania and New Jersey regulators have launched similar inquiries into Verizon's operations in recent weeks.
Last week, Verizon announced that the company has put its "last, best and final offer" on the table to members of the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
Unfortunately, said CWA, the company's "last and best" was little more than the "same old bullshit."
Organizers have announced that Thursday, May 5 will be a national day of action supporting the striking workers.
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This Stoppage Won't Stop: Verizon Strike Continues as Talks Fall Through
"Workers are sticking together and standing up for their families and to protect all middle class jobs against excess corporate greed."
Apr 15, 2016
Verizon workers entered day three of their massive strike against the telecommunications giant on Friday, as job negotiations reportedly continued to fall short.
As workers kept up coordinated marches, rallies, and picket lines up and down the East Coast, support for their actions kept growing and Verizon's stock dropped four percent since last week as "concerns over the strike's impact started becoming more real," InvestorPlace wrote.
From the ground, the workers said they had been waiting for more than 10 months for Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam to address their needs. Unions "are ready and eager to get back to the bargaining table if Verizon executives are ready to get serious about negotiations," they said in a statement. "Until then, Verizon workers are sticking together and standing up for their families and to protect all middle class jobs against excess corporate greed."
The strike also comes at a pivotal moment as economic inequality takes the stage in mainstream discourse. Writing at The New Republic on Friday, journalist David Dayen notes, "The Verizon case incorporates big themes in the economy--outsourcing, monopolies, automation, and inequality, to name a few."
Dayen writes:
[The strike] reflects the gradual thinning out of good-paying, middle-class U.S. jobs. And in this election year, it forces politicians to choose--not just between labor and management, but between a future of shared prosperity for workers and one in which a lot of low-paid service employees cater to the bidding of the ultra-rich.
That includes politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, both of whom joined the workers' picket line in New York ahead of their debate on Thursday. But McAdam reserved all his vitriol for Sanders alone, writing in a LinkedIn post that the Vermont senator's "uninformed views are, in a word, contemptible," a charge that was echoed by General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt.
Sanders responded by tweeting, "I don't want the support of McAdam, Immelt and their friends in the billionaire class. I welcome their contempt."
He followed that up with an explicit demand during the debate for McAdam to negotiate with Verizon workers, telling moderator Wolf Blitzer, "This gentleman makes $18 million a year in salary.... This gentleman is now negotiating to take away health care benefits of Verizon workers, outsource call center jobs to the Philippines, and trying to create a situation where workers will lose their jobs. He is not investing in the way he should in inner cities in America."
As McAdam held out, union officials refused to back down.
"Verizon workers and customers are extremely frustrated that company executives are not more serious about bargaining," said Ed Mooney, vice president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 2-13. "Today, CWA and IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] met with Verizon to discuss the contract covering workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and West Virginia, but after 30 minutes and more demands to devastate workers' jobs, company executives left for the weekend."
"Workers already have put hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare cost savings at the table," Mooney said. "We simply cannot compromise on contract changes that would ship more work overseas and have our families separated for months at a time."
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Sanders' Political Revolution Draws Nearly 30,000 to New York City Rally
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders drew a raucous crowd of 27,000 to a Manhattan rally ahead of the critical New York primary
Apr 14, 2016
"There are a lot of people here tonight!" observed New York native Bernie Sanders as he began speaking to a raucous, cheering crowd of 27,000 in New York City's Washington Square Park on Wednesday night at the largest rally of the presidential hopeful's campaign thus far.
Members of the crowd climbed trees and crowded at the windows of surrounding buildings to catch a glimpse of the Vermont senator, and occasionally punctuated the candidate's speech with chants of "Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!"
The crowd wore face paint, touted placards declaring "Brooklyn is Berning" and "Democracy v Oligarchy, Humanity v Greed," and some even arrived sporting Bernie Sanders costumes and puppets.
And while many attendees were young, Sanders also drew an older generation of progressives who remembered attending rallies in Washington Square to protest the Vietnam War in their youth.
One such member of the crowd was Robert Carpenter, a retired accountant and veteran from Queens, who told the New York Times, "Bernie is me. I am Bernie."
"I'm one year older than him," Carpenter told the newspaper. "We've been fighting for the same causes our entire lives."
Carpenter also told the Times that he could never vote for Sanders' opponent: "I will never, ever forgive [Hillary Clinton] for her voting for the Iraq War. To say it was a mistake? After all those people were killed and maimed? I do not accept that."
"What this campaign is profoundly about is that change is never from the top on down. It is always from the bottom on up."
--Bernie Sanders
Before Sanders' speech, the popular NYC-based band Vampire Weekend warmed up the crowd, and speeches from famous New Yorkers Rosario Dawson, Tim Robbins, and Spike Lee followed to praise the so-called outsider candidate to the overwhelming crowd of supporters.
Sanders seemed surprised by the rally's size, and smiled broadly when he arrived on the stage to deliver a speech that focused on a few of the touchstones of his campaign: corporate greed, campaign finance reform, climate change, and income inequality.
Speaking in the state for which Clinton served two terms as senator and in the same city Wall Street financiers call home, the outspoken democratic socialist candidate also expressed optimism for his chances of winning the state's upcoming primary.
"When I look at an unbelievable crowd like this," Sanders said, "I believe we're going to win in New York next Tuesday."
His chances at winning, he argued, were good, particularly if the tens of thousands who came out on a cold Wednesday night to hear him speak presaged a large voter turnout for the state's April 19 primary.
Sanders also returned to his campaign's message about political revolution, urging the crowd to continue to fight to overturn the status quo.
"What this campaign is profoundly about," Sanders said, "is that change is never from the top on down. It is always from the bottom on up."
The senator continued:
What this campaign is about is the understanding that when we stand together--black, and white, and Latino, and Asian American, and Native American. When we do not allow the Donald Trumps of the world to divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. What this campaign understands is that real change is when 100 years ago, workers who were exploited, who worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, stood together and said 'we will be treated with dignity and respect,' and formed a trade union.
Sanders also reiterated his support for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union of Verizon employees who went on strike on Wednesday for a fair contract. CWA signs from the strike could be seen waving from the crowd; it appeared that many striking workers attended the rally after picketing all day.
"Tonight, I want to take my hat off to the CWA. Thank you," Sanders said.
He told his supporters, "They are standing up to a greedy corporation that wants to cut their healthcare benefits, send decent paying jobs abroad, and then provide $20 million a year to their CEO."
The progressive crowd booed.
"And Verizon is just a poster child for what so many corporations are doing today," Sanders continued. "This campaign is sending a message to corporate America: You cannot have it all."
The crowd erupted into cheers.
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Obama's Fast Track Attack on Women
Jun 08, 2015
The President is asking for "fast track" authority to let the White House be the sole negotiator on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a giant twelve-nation trade agreement between the U.S. and Pacific Rim nations. Fast track passed the Senate in May, and could come up for a House vote as early as this week.
Trouble is, the provisions are secret, and the Obama administration won't tell Congress or the people what's in it. But thanks to a few chapters released by Wikileaks online last year, we already know it's a disaster for U.S. workers--especially women.
According to the Washington Post, around 600 corporations and a couple of labor unions have seen a draft. A few members of Congress have seen parts of it in a "secure soundproof reading room," where cellphones and note-taking are not allowed. The majority of congress members and the public have not, and those members who have been given extremely limited access is forbidden to discuss it with the public.
The so-called partnership is an insult to all U.S. workers, with many provisions that will hurt women the most. The Communications Workers of America says it will steal majority-female jobs from low-wage workplaces like call centers, as well as higher-wage sectors such as human resources. And according to Doctors Without Borders, the agreement may well cut off access to generic drugs for people living with HIV/AIDS--now predominately women and kids.
At the same time supporters in the Senate were beating their chests when they passed fast track for TPP claiming it will create jobs, they also passed a companion measure called the TAA --Trade Adjustment Assistance. And what would that do? Give assistance to U.S. workers displaced by free trade agreements. Huh? Didn't they say the TPP would create jobs? Yeah, but they forgot to mention those much touted new jobs will be in low wage countries paying pennies per hour.
And then there's the collateral damage. The TAA will be paid for by benefit cuts in Medicare, a program women depend on more than men do. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cuts will amount to $700 million. So, add health care providers to the list of those who are against this rotten deal.
The final insult? Under the rules, businesses incorporated in Trans-Pacific Partnership countries would be guaranteed equal treatment with U.S. firms when bidding on government contracts. That means our tax dollars would be underwriting countries like Brunei, which imprisons unmarried women for getting pregnant and allows stoning of gays and lesbians.
If the President and Congress really want to help U.S. workers, why not start with something guaranteed to work quickly right here at home - like a higher minimum wage. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Throw it overboard.
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