Rep. Speier Tells Labor She Will Oppose “Free Trade” Deals

The San Mateo County Central Labor Council hosted a breakfast meeting with Congressmember Jackie Speier in San Mateo September 1. Several union members were able to ask the Congresswoman about labor issues and hear her thoughts about President Obama, defense spending, job creation efforts, and her efforts to ensure pipeline safety.

Speier surprised many and received applause from the union members with her announcement that she had decided to vote against the three “free trade” agreements—with Colombia, South Korea and Panama—that are set to come before Congress. The FTAs were left over from the Bush administration and include some of the same flaws as the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which has cost American jobs.

Speier said the tipping point for her decision was finding out that the company awarded the contract to make uniforms for the Transportation Security Administration had decided to outsource the work to Mexico. “When NAFTA creates a situation where the government gives a contract and then the company realizes they can move to Mexico and takes jobs away, and jobs are lost and taxpayers lose—it just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “There’s nothing in the three new agreements that enforces U.S. laws and keeps jobs in America.”

Ms. Speier was asked by Rich Hedges of the United Food and Commercial Workers for her help in enacting immigration reform that would allow the three to five thousand agricultural workers who were invited to the U.S. by agricultural firms to gain citizenship. Speier said due to “an incendiary atmosphere” in the current Republican-controlled House, “immigration reform probably won’t get done in the next two years.” She said passage of the DREAM Act was possible; a version of the Act that allows undocumented students to receive college grants was passed in California.

IBEW Local 617 president Mark Leach asked Speier to contact San Mateo County Supervisors to make good, labor-friendly appointments to local boards like the one that oversees the SM Events Center. Speier said she would make the calls.

Stan Kiino of the Association of Flight Attendants thanked Speier for her support of the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. He asked if she thought the bill to fund the TSA would succeed. Speier said the issue was that Republicans wanted more private screeners. Screeners employed by the TSA recently voted to unionize. Speier said she now serves on the Homeland Security Subcommittee and that she is learning more through the briefings she gets that, “the function of the TSA is critical.”

Karen Sawislak of the Engineers and Scientists Local 20 expressed concerns about the merger of United and Continental Airlines and the need for the airlines to keep staffing levels adequate for aircraft maintenance. Speier said she was disturbed by the trend in the airline industry to do repairs abroad. “It’s gone from 30 percent of aircraft being serviced abroad to 60 percent,” she said. “I’ve been educated by the Teamsters about the lack of security in foreign maintenance plants; I’ve asked for hearings in Congress. It’s very troubling.”

Doug Bloch of the Teamsters thanked Speier for her opposition to the free trade deals and asked her to help persuade Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren to also oppose the deals. Their districts would be negatively impacted by the deals. Speier suggested that unions make the case against the deals by pointing out that NAFTA hasn’t worked and that U.S. laws haven’t been enforced.
Riko Mendez of Service Employees Local 521 said that unions consider Speier a champion for supporting job creation and asked her to consider labor as a resource when trying to make the case for jobs programs in Congress.

Retired teacher and AFT 3267 member Adrienne Zanini said teachers wanted Congress to revise the No Child Left Behind Act. She said that under the terms of the NCLB, teaching has become more about passing tests and not about the love of learning. “These kids are not cars or DVDs that you can measure like products,” she said. Speier said she agreed and that “teaching to the test is not the way to go.” She said teachers unions should be consulted to modify the law.

SMCLC president Eddie Raymond noted that the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was a time to reflect on the past 10 years. He noted that “two wars are being fought without any tax increases to pay for them. We are not helping our veterans and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the military.” Raymond asked if there was a plan in Congress to recover from the economic devastation of the last 10 years.

“I’ve been clear about where I stand,” Speier said. “I visited Kuwait, Afghanistan and Yemen; everywhere I went there is ‘host fatigue’—they don’t want us there.” She said the U.S. is spending $12 billion a month on the two wars. “We are supposed to be out of Iraq by December, but don’t count on it,” she said. “We may reduce the military but there will still be contractors there.

“I’ve taken the position not to fund theses wars and to cut defense spending,” Speier added. “I feel so strongly about it that I am going to hire a staff person dedicated to studying how to cut defense spending.” She said that, “We should never have gone into Afghanistan, but once we saw that we couldn’t win, we should have gotten out.”

Congresswoman Speier said she thought president Obama had been gracious in rescheduling his jobs speech before Congress and that the president needed to do more. She pointed out that, “Jobs were created in the 1930s within months of FDR’s election.”

- Paul Burton