Bad Trade Deals and Women: Lower Wages, Reduced Access to Lifesaving Health Care & Human Trafficking
Posted on the AFL-CIO website:
Bad Trade Deals and Women: Lower Wages, Reduced Access to Lifesaving Health Care and Human Trafficking
03/08/2016 - By Khristyn Brimmeier, Coalition for Better Trade
The theme for International Women's Day this year is gender parity, and while women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement, progress toward gender parity has slowed. And trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership does nothing to contribute to that parity and, in many cases, it will reinforce negatives such as downward pressure on wages, sex trafficking and reduced access to medicines.
The organizers of International Women's Day are asking us to pledge to take a concrete step to help achieve gender parity more quickly. Opposing the TPP should be a part of that pledge because:
1. The TPP Is a Race to the Bottom for Women Making the Minimum Wage: Modeled after other failed trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the TPP will accelerate the race to the bottom, primarily benefiting global corporations. If Congress passes the TPP, Americans will be forced to compete more directly with Vietnamese workers who make less than 65 cents an hour. Women—especially women of color—are disproportionately affected by downward pressure on wages.
Women comprise nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers, and a race to the bottom in wages will most dramatically impact women of color, who make up a much higher percentage of minimum wage workers (23%) than their population in the workforce (16%). Trade agreements tend to discourage unionization and increase competition with international workers, which, in turn, erodes wages and worsens working conditions here at home and globally.
2. The TPP Is a Deal That Includes a Country That Jails Single Mothers:...
Read more:
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Bad-Trade-Deals-and-Women-Lower-Wages-Reduced-Access-to-Lifesaving-Health-Care-and-Human-Trafficking
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