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Teamsters Oppose Permanent NTR for China

On November 30, thousands of Teamsters from across the U.S. and Canada united in Seattle to send a clear message: We cannot and we will not allow the World Trade Organization (WTO) and our political leaders to bow to the alter of free trade.

This is the same message we have been sending since NAFTA and few have listened … until now. Marching in Seattle against the WTO with other unions, environmentalist, and consumer groups who share our concerns, the Teamsters succeeded in transforming trade policy forever. Like it or not, political leaders now understand that American workers will be players when U.S. trade policy is made.

Seattle was just the beginning. A larger battle now looms, the battle against free, unmonitored trade with China.

China wants to be in the WTO and it wants permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR) status. What it really wants is our dollars and our jobs. It has begun a NAFTA-like campaign using its practically non-existent labor and environmental standards to lure stateless, borderless, multinational corporations overseas, taking good paying American jobs with them.

The fact is that if China is granted permanent NTR status, Teamsters and other working Americans will lose 607,000 manufacturing jobs.

Despite the facts about China’s abysmal record on worker and human rights and America job losses, Big Business wants the American people to support this flawed free trade scheme with China.

"This deal represents the triumph of unbridled corporate greed over the views and the values of this nation’s working families," said International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa. "Working families are demanding fair trade not free trade. It is time our representatives in Congress demand the same."

The Teamsters are engaging in an extensive grassroots effort to prevent Congress from granting permanent NTR status to China. Please join us!

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 255-3121 and talk to your member of Congress about this important issue. Tell them to VOTE NO on PERMANENT NTR!