San Diego On Friday, January 31stSan Diego to Rally Against theTrans-Pacific Partnership in Continent-Wide Day of Action:  Over 40 Cities Say NO More NAFTAs! Insolidarity with communities across North America and the world, San Diegans will participate in an Intercontinental Day of Action against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the fast-track legislation that would rush the deal through Congress without meaningful debate. This action coincides with a conference in Mexico City reviewing the catastrophic impact of 20 years ofNAFTA on Mexico, and emphasizing the need for a radically new trade model for the continent and the world.  Congress members Susan Davis and Darrell Issa have not joined their San Diego delegation colleagues Duncan Hunter, Scott Peters and Juan Vargas in opposing FastTracking the TPP through Congress.

This Rally calls upon ALL of our San Diego County House Delegation to join with 178 of their colleagues from BOTH PARTIES who publicly oppose Fast Tracking, and Vote NO on “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority or any other mechanism that continues to exclude Congress from its constitutional role in the formative stages of trade agreements and throughout negotiating and approval processes. 

WHAT:    Rally for Congress to Vote NO! On Fast Track for the TPP
WHEN:   Friday, January 31, 2014, 11:30a-1p PST
WHERE:  Infront of San Diego Federal Building-Courthouse, 880 Front Street             

January 2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that has had devastating consequences for working families,small farmers, indigenous people, small business, and the environment in all three countries. The effects of NAFTA’s extreme investor “rights” chapter which lets corporations sue governments for public policies they don’t like, has been felt far beyond the continent since these “rights” have become a common feature of next-generation trade deals. The pending TPP expands this pro-corporate regime across this hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean. Leaked texts prove the TPPis another corporate bill of rights that threatens to: Destroy livelihoods and accelerate the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions:

• Further commodify agriculture, trample food sovereignty, hurt small farmers and contribute to forced migration
• Enable new corporate attacks on democratically-enacted environmental and consumer protections
• Undermine global economic stability by prohibiting effective regulation of financial markets
• Reduce access to life-saving generic medications, increase the costs of prescriptions, and restrict freedom on the Internet                   

We will have several speakers, starting around Noon, including: Rabbi Laurie Coskey, Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of San Diego County
Al Shur, retired Business Manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569, and former VP/Executive Council member of the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO
Virginia Franco of the San Diego Maquiladora Workers Solidarity Network[1]
Rob Nathoff, Policy Analyst with the Center on Policy Initiatives
Jean Costa, representing the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club
Christina Imhoof, TPP Lead for Women Occupy San Diego
 
Women Occupy San Diego's popular choral group, the Occupellas, will perform after the speakers.  WOSD member and poet, Jeeni Criszenzodel Rio, will also perform.  BilingualEnglish/Spanish speaker.