"If the TPP would be as good for American jobs as they claim, there should be nothing to hide."

[Octafish]

38. 'Progressive' Coalition for Fast Track and TPP Appears from Nowhere

WRITTEN BY RICK COHEN / 17 March, 2015 / Buzzfeed 15 March, 2015

Since the days of the North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiated under the administration of President George H.W. Bush and ratified under President Bill Clinton, free trade agreements and “fast track negotiating authority” have been controversial issues, generally sought by the White House regardless of the political party and increasingly opposed by labor unions and political “progressives.” What constitutes a “progressive,” and who can claim that word, is at the heart of a controversy reported upon by Kate Nocera and Evan McMorris-Santoro for Buzzfeed.

President Obama has been supporting a new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership and seeking fast track negotiating authority, which would basically give the White House the ability to bring the completed agreement to Congress for an up or down vote, but with no ability to amend or filibuster. Nocera and McMorris-Santoro picked up on a Politico report about a “rift” among progressives regarding the TPP.

A new, hitherto unknown entity called the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs” has emerged with the purpose, it appears, to “give the president trade promotion authority and establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The Coalition’s dot.org website takes you to a “fact sheet“ that contends that President Obama’s negotiating stance on the TPP will “level…the playing field for American workers and protect…jobs here at home.” They contend that unlike previous trade agreements, this one, under President Obama’s firm hand, would get the signatory countries to respect collective bargaining rights for their workers, prohibit “exploitative child labor and forced labor” (does that mean that there are non-exploitative versions of this?), set minimum wage and maximum work hours standards (what those might be isn’t specified), and adhere to environmental protection standards.

“There’s something weird about the group, though,” the Buzzfeed writers reveal. “No one in the Washington, D.C., progressive community seems to have ever heard of them before.”

Nocera and McMorris-Santoro reveal that the people behind his coalition, not identified on the coalition’s website, are former members of the Obama campaign team, including Mitch Stewart, who had run Organizing For America, an organization that emerged from the Obama campaign, Lynda Tran, another former OFA person, and Jeremy Bird, the campaign’s former field director who with Stewart created the campaign consulting firm 270 Strategies. According to the Buzzfeed reporters, “Tran told BuzzFeed News the purpose of the group was to boost liberal voices who support the Obama trade agenda.”

CONTINUED...

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/25789-progressive-coalition-for-fast-track-and-tpp-appears-from-nowhere.html