[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 60 (Thursday, April 23, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2374-S2377]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Trans-Pacific Partnership

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the fast-
track bill the Finance Committee approved last night, and that I think 
will be on the floor next week or the following week, on the Trans-
Pacific Partnership.
  I think the most important aspect of this debate is that what we are 
discussing with the TPP is not a new concept. It is not as though 
somebody came and said, I have a great idea; let's try this trade 
agreement, and it is going to be really good for the American worker 
and the American middle class and the American people. The truth is 
that we have seen this movie time and time and time again. Let me tell 
my colleagues that the ending of this movie is not very good. It is a 
pretty bad ending. I think most Americans understand that our past 
trade agreements have failed our American workers and have led to the 
loss of millions of decent-paying jobs.
  What I simply don't understand--if we were going forward in the first 
place, with a new idea, maybe we should give it a shot. But when we 
went forward with NAFTA, when we went forward with CAFTA, when we went 
forward with Normal Permanent Trade Relations and there were all of 
these folks telling us how great these agreements were going to be and 
it turned out that virtually everything they said was inaccurate--not 
true--why in God's Name would we go forward with another trade 
agreement which is, in fact, larger than previous trade agreements?
  Let me give an example of what I mean. On September 19, 1993, 
President Bill Clinton said the following:

       I believe that NAFTA will create 200,000 American jobs in 
     the first two years of its effect. . . . I believe that NAFTA 
     will create a million jobs in the first five years of its 
     effect.

  So President Clinton was pushing the NAFTA agreement very hard, and 
that is what he said.
  In 1993, the same year, the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the 
most conservative think tanks in the country--so here we have a liberal 
President, Bill Clinton, and we have a conservative think tank, the 
Heritage Foundation--this is what they said: ``Virtually all economists 
agree that NAFTA will produce a net increase of U.S. jobs over the next 
decade.''
  In 1993, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, who is now our 
majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said: ``American firms will not move 
to Mexico just for lower wages.'' Mitch McConnell: ``American firms 
will not move to Mexico just for lower wages.''
  Well, was President Clinton right? Was the Heritage Foundation right? 
Was Senator McConnell right? No. I think the evidence is pretty clear 
they were all wrong.
  According to a well-respected economist at the Economic Policy 
Institute--and their facts usually hold up pretty well--NAFTA has led 
to the loss of more than 680,000 American jobs. What President Clinton 
said was wrong, what the Heritage Foundation said was wrong. We lost 
substantial numbers of jobs.
  In 1993, the year before NAFTA was implemented, the United States had 
a trade surplus with Mexico of more than $1.6 billion. Last year, the 
trade deficit with Mexico was $53 billion. We had a trade surplus of 
$1.6 billion; last year we had a deficit of $53 billion. Now, how is 
that a success? I don't know.
  In other words, NAFTA has been a disaster for American workers.
  What about the Chinese trade agreement? I remember hearing all of the 
discussions about how great it would be if we had a trade agreement 
with a huge country such as China; thinking about all of the American 
products they would be buying, manufactured here in the United States. 
Here is what President Bill Clinton said about PNTR with China back in 
1999. It is important to remember what people said because they are 
saying the same thing about this trade agreement. But this is back in 
1999, Bill Clinton, President, PNTR with China:

       In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create 
     unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and 
     companies to compete successfully in China's market. . . . 
     This is a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes 
     to the economic consequences.

  Once again, that is a liberal President.
  Now, we have the conservative think tanks that love unfettered free 
trade. In 1999, discussing PNTR with China, the conservative economists 
at the Cato Institute--these are really conservative guys and this is 
what they said:

       The silliest argument against PNTR is that Chinese imports 
     would overwhelm U.S. industry. In fact, American workers are 
     far more productive than their Chinese counterparts. . . . 
     PNTR would create far more export opportunities for America 
     than the Chinese.

  Well, what can we say about that? The Cato Institute wrote in 1999: 
``The silliest argument against PNTR is that Chinese imports would 
overwhelm U.S. industry.''
  Sure. Right.
  If we go out to any department store in America and we buy products, 
where

[[Page S2375]]

are those products made? Guess what. They are made in China. It appears 
that, in fact, Chinese imports did overwhelm U.S. industry. The Cato 
Institute was dead wrong.
  Again, nobody is really surprised at this. There is no more debate 
about this. Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, that trade 
agreement, was a disaster.
  The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that trade agreement with 
China has led to the loss of 2.7 million American jobs. The trade 
deficit with China has increased from $83 billion in 2001 to $342 
billion in 2014.
  Now, in terms of China, I don't know that the American people have 
any doubt about it. Every time we go shopping, the products 
overwhelmingly are made in China. People look in their own towns and in 
their own States--my State--and see losses of more and more 
manufacturing jobs. Since 2001, we have lost 60,000 manufacturing 
facilities in America. Not all of it is attributable to trade; there 
are other reasons, but a lot of it is attributable to trade. Millions 
of decent-paying jobs are gone; people thrown out on the street as 
companies move to China, Vietnam, and other low-wage countries. There 
is not a debate about it. That is exactly what has happened. 
Corporation after corporation has said, Why do I want to pay an 
American worker $15, $20 an hour? Why do I want to deal with the union? 
Why do I have to obey environmental regulations? I can move to China, I 
can move to Vietnam, I can move to Malaysia or Mexico and I can pay 
people pennies an hour and bring the product back into the United 
States. That is what they said, and that is what they have done.
  Major corporation after major corporation has reduced employment in 
America at the same time as they have increased employment in other 
countries.
  Not only is it the loss of jobs, it is the race to the bottom. It is 
employers saying to workers, Look, I am cutting your health care, I am 
not giving you a raise, and if you don't like it, I am moving to China 
because there are people all over the world who are prepared to work 
for wages a lot lower than you are receiving. You can take it or leave 
it. That is one of the reasons why today the typical American worker is 
working longer hours for lower wages than he or she used to and why 
wages have gone down in America. That is what the global economy has 
done. That is what these horrendous unfettered free-trade agreements 
have pushed on American workers. That is the Chinese trade agreement: 
an estimated 2.7 million American jobs lost.
  Then we have the Korea Free Trade Agreement, which has led to a loss 
of some 60,000 jobs. Our trade deficit with that country has gone up 
from $16.6 billion in 2012 to $25 billion in 2014.
  So we have a history of failed trade agreement after failed trade 
agreement after failed trade agreement and people say, Hey, we failed, 
we failed, we failed; let's do the same thing again and this time we 
are really, really, really going to succeed. I don't think anybody 
really believes that.
  I do understand that Wall Street loves this trade agreement and they 
are staying up nights worrying about ordinary Americans; and I 
understand that the major corporations in this country love this 
agreement and the truck companies love this agreement, which gives us 
enough reason to hold this agreement in doubt.
  Now, the Obama administration says, Well, trust us. Forget about the 
other trade agreements. This TPP is something different. It is a better 
agreement. This time will be different. This time it will support about 
650,000 American jobs. Well, supporters of unfettered free trade were 
wrong about NAFTA, they were wrong about CAFTA, they were wrong about 
PNTR with China, and they were wrong about the Korea Free Trade 
Agreement and--surprise of all surprises--they are wrong again.
  If the fast-track is approved, it would pave the way for the passage 
of the TPP--the Trans-Pacific Partnership--trade agreement. As my 
colleagues know, this trade agreement is poised to be the largest free-
trade agreement in history, encompassing 12 nations that account for 
roughly 40 percent of the global economy. This is a very big deal.
  Let me speak about two of those countries that are involved in the 
TPP; those are Vietnam and Malaysia. We are fighting here--and I 
understand there are differences of opinion--we are fighting here in 
the U.S. Congress to raise the minimum wage. I happen to believe a 
$7.25 minimum wage, which is what it is federally, is a starvation 
wage. I would like to see it go up over a period of years to $15 an 
hour. The Presiding Officer may disagree, and there are others who 
disagree.
  Let me tell my colleagues what the minimum wage is in Vietnam. The 
minimum wage in Vietnam is 56 cents an hour--56 cents an hour. So we 
have American workers being forced to compete against people who make 
56 cents an hour. And we have a situation, just as one example of many, 
where the Nike company--a company which produces over 365 million pairs 
of athletic shoes each year--goes all over the world. Do you know how 
many of those athletic shoes are manufactured in the United States of 
America? Fifty million? Twenty million? Ten million? One million? Zero. 
On the other hand, they employ 330,000 workers in Vietnam--mostly young 
women--and while they refuse to tell us, give us the detailed 
information, our supposition is that most of those women make very low 
wages.

  Let's be clear about what is going on. According to a November 11, 
2014, article in the Vietnamese newspaper Thanh Nien News: ``Analysts 
acknowledge that Vietnam's abundance of cheap labor has played an 
increasingly pivotal role in wooing foreign firms looking to set up 
overseas manufacturing operations in a country with a population of 90 
million.''
  In other words, that is what this is all about. Wages are very low in 
Vietnam. Companies from the United States and all over the world will 
go to that country. Allowing the TPP to pass will make it easier for 
multinational companies to shut down in America and move to Vietnam. 
That is wrong.
  When we talk about free trade, it is important to understand what is 
involved. Whom are we competing against? Are we competing against 
Canadian workers whose standard of living is as high or higher than 
ours? Are we competing against workers in Germany whose standard of 
living may be higher than ours? No. We are competing against people who 
are struggling to stay alive, earning the lowest possible wages that 
keep a human being alive.
  Last year, the Human Rights Watch published a report on Vietnam. Here 
are some of the quotes from that report:

       The human rights situation in Vietnam deteriorated 
     significantly in 2013, worsening a trend evident for several 
     years. The year was marked by a severe and intensifying 
     crackdown on critics, including long prison terms for many 
     peaceful activists whose ``crime'' was calling for political 
     change.

  In other words, in Vietnam, if you speak up, you want political 
change, there is a likelihood you will end up in jail.

       Vietnam bans all political parties, labor unions and human 
     rights organizations independent of the government. . . . The 
     authorities require official approval for public gatherings 
     and refuse to grant permission for meetings, marches, or 
     protests they deem politically or otherwise unacceptable.

  It is not my point to beat up on Vietnam. They are a struggling 
country--a poor country that went through a terrible war with the 
United States that caused them incredible harm. But when we look at a 
trade agreement, when we say to American workers: This is your 
competition, people who are making 56 cents an hour in some cases, 
people who can't form an independent trade union, people who 
politically can't stand up and speak up for their rights, is that 
really appropriate and fair to the American worker? I don't think it 
is. I don't think it is.
  Let me say a word not just on Vietnam but another country in that 
consortium of partners in the TPP; that is, the country of Malaysia.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a New York Times article, dated September 17, 2014.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 17, 2014]

      Report Cites Forced Labor in Malaysia's Electronics Industry

                         (By Steven Greenhouse)

       Nearly one in three migrant workers in Malaysia's thriving 
     electronics industry

[[Page S2376]]

     toils under forced labor conditions, essentially trapped in 
     the job, a factory monitoring group found in a report issued 
     on Wednesday.
       The monitoring group, Verite--which conducted a two-year 
     investigation commissioned by the United States Department of 
     Labor--found that 32 percent of the industry's nearly 200,000 
     migrant workers were employed in forced situations because 
     their passports had been taken away or because they were 
     straining to pay back illegally high recruitment fees.
       The report said those practices were prevalent among the 
     migrants from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam and 
     other countries who work in Malaysia's nearly 200 electronics 
     factories. Those factories, which produce consumer 
     electronics, motherboards, computer peripherals and other 
     electronic goods, account for a third of Malaysia's exports 
     and produce for many well-known companies, including Apple, 
     Flextronics, Samsung and Sony.
       The Verite report said that 92 percent of the migrant 
     workers in Malaysia's electronics industry had paid 
     recruitment fees and that 92 percent of that group had paid 
     fees that exceeded legal or industry standards, defined as 
     more than one month's wages.
       The report said about half of the migrant workers who 
     borrowed for their recruitment fees spent more than a year 
     paying off those fees. According to the report, 94 percent of 
     the migrants did not have their passports when Verite's 
     investigators interviewed them, and 71 percent said it would 
     be impossible or difficult to get their passports back when 
     needed.
       ``This most modern of industrial sectors is characterized 
     by a form of exploitation that long ago should have been 
     relegated to the past,'' said Daniel Viederman, chief 
     executive of Verite. ``The problem is not one of a few 
     isolated cases. It is indeed widespread.''
       Labor Department officials commissioned the study because 
     the federal government frowns on the importation of goods 
     made by forced labor. They sought an investigation after 
     seeing evidence that the problem was serious in Malaysia.
       Twelve investigators working for Verite interviewed a total 
     of 501 workers from nearly 200 Malaysian factories. According 
     to the study, ``92 percent reported feeling compelled to work 
     overtime hours to pay off their debt, and 85 percent felt it 
     was impossible to leave their job before paying off their 
     debt.'' Seventy-seven percent had to borrow money to pay 
     their recruitment fees.
       ``Workers are paying too much to get their jobs,'' Mr. 
     Viederman said. ``That leaves them vulnerable to being 
     trapped in their jobs.''
       He told of a migrant worker from Nepal who spoke good 
     English and was the only one of five children with a college 
     degree. His family paid a recruitment agent $1,500 for his 
     job, which was more than twice the annual income in Nepal, 
     and they borrowed much of that at a 36 percent annual 
     interest rate.
       When the Nepali arrived in Malaysia, his passport was taken 
     from him at the airport, and he has not seen it since, he 
     told the Verite interviewer. ``He has now completed 14 months 
     of a three-year contract, and he has not been able to save 
     any money'' because he is still paying back the recruitment 
     fees, Mr. Viederman said. The Nepali works 12 hours a day, 
     often seven days a week, and said it would take two years to 
     finish repaying the loan.
       ``He doesn't want to be in Malaysia anymore,'' Mr. 
     Viederman said. ``He wants to quit and return home, but then 
     he would have to pay a hefty fine and purchase his own plane 
     ticket and still have the loan payment hanging over his head. 
     He wasn't sure if he could get his passport back.''
       The report found that 30 percent of foreign workers said 
     they slept in a room with more than eight people, and 43 
     percent said there was no place where they could safely store 
     their belongings. Twenty-two percent of the workers said they 
     had been deceived about their wages, hours or overtime 
     requirements during the recruitment process.
       Mr. Viederman said many workers faced a ``one-two punch''--
     being charged high recruitment fees and then being paid less 
     than they had been promised. He said many workers were told 
     that their wages would be withheld or they would be reported 
     to authorities if they complained or protested.
       The Malaysian Embassy in Washington did not respond to 
     inquiries--Tuesday was a national holiday.
       Officials from Samsung and Sony did not respond to 
     questions about Malaysia.
       Asked about the reports of forced labor, Chris Gaither, a 
     spokesman for Apple, said: ``This is an issue we have paid a 
     lot of attention to and done a lot of work on. We were the 
     first electronics company to mandate reimbursement to workers 
     who were charged excessive recruitment fees.''
       Mr. Gaither said Apple's supply chain, which employs 1.5 
     million workers worldwide, employs 18,000 in Malaysia, 
     including 4,000 migrant contract workers. He said that since 
     2008, Apple had helped migrant workers in Malaysia and 
     elsewhere to reclaim $19.8 million in excessive recruitment 
     fees, which he defined as more than one month's wages. Apple 
     uses about 30 factories in Malaysia, and Apple had audits 
     done at 18 of them in the last year to investigate forced 
     labor and other problems.
       Mr. Viederman said companies should strengthen their codes 
     of conduct to bar payment of recruitment fees for workers at 
     any factories they use and to prohibit supplier factories 
     from taking migrant workers' passports. He said companies 
     should make sure their factory monitors engaged in aggressive 
     investigations to unearth such practices. In addition, he 
     called for a grievance procedure for workers that would hold 
     the companies, suppliers and labor brokers accountable.
       The Verite report found 62 percent of migrant workers said 
     they were unable to move around freely without their 
     passports. Fifty-seven percent said they could not leave 
     their job before their contract was finished because they 
     would be charged an illegally high fine, lose their passport 
     or be denounced to the authorities.
       Forty-six percent reported having encounters with police, 
     immigration officials or a volunteer citizens security corps. 
     Most of the 46 percent said they had to pay a bribe, were 
     detained or were threatened with detention or physical harm. 
     Twenty-seven percent of the foreign workers said they could 
     not come and go freely from their housing.

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, what the New York Times article talks 
about is that today there are nearly 200 electronics factories in 
Malaysia where high-tech products from Apple, Dell, Intel, Motorola, 
and Texas Instruments are manufactured and brought back into the United 
States. It turns out Malaysia is a major center for the manufacturing 
of electronics, and some of the largest electronics manufacturers in 
the world are centered or have plants in Malaysia. If the TPP is 
approved, that number will go up substantially. Now, what is wrong with 
that?
  Well, let's talk about what is going on in Malaysia, where American 
companies in this country and American workers will have to compete as 
part of the TPP. Well, it turns out that many of the workers at the 
electronics plants in Malaysia are immigrants to that country and are 
forced to work there under subhuman working conditions.
  According to Verite, which conducted a 2-year investigation into 
labor abuses in Malaysia, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department 
of Labor--this report was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor.
  This report tells us that 32 percent of the electronics industries' 
nearly 200,000 migrant workers in Malaysia were employed in forced 
situations because their passports had been taken away or because they 
were straining to pay back illegally high recruitment fees.
  According to the New York Times article commenting on the study, 92 
percent of the migrant workers in Malaysia's electronics industries had 
paid recruitment fees, and 92 percent of that group had paid fees that 
exceeded legal or industry standards defined as more than one month's 
wages.
  Ninety-four percent of the migrants did not have their passports when 
Verite's investigators interviewed them. Let me repeat that. The 
passports were taken away from 94 percent of the people whom these 
investigators interviewed. Now, if you are a migrant in a foreign 
country and your passport is taken away, you have no rights at all. You 
can't leave. You may not be able to travel. You have no rights at all. 
In other words, many of these workers who wanted to leave Malaysia were 
unable to do so. They were forced to stay and continue to work under 
these subhuman conditions.
  Mr. President, 30 percent of foreign workers--this is again in the 
report from Verite, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor--30 
percent of foreign workers said they slept in a room with more than 
eight people, and 43 percent said there was no place where they could 
safely store their belongings.
  Well, when we talk about competition and a competitive global 
economy, I do not believe the American worker should be forced to 
compete against workers who are literally held in slave-like 
conditions, unable to leave the country, having their passports taken 
away, working for pennies an hour.
  Let me conclude simply by saying this: This trade agreement is being 
pushed on the Congress by the largest corporations in the United States 
of America. They love unfettered free trade because it enables them to 
shut down in America and move to low-wage countries where they can 
employ workers at pennies an hour. This trade agreement is pushed on us 
by Wall Street, that wants to make sure that around the world they will 
have financial regulations that make it easier for them to do what they 
do, rather than serve the economies of countries around the world.

[[Page S2377]]

  This legislation is strongly supported by the pharmaceutical industry 
that will have the opportunity to prevent poor countries around the 
world from moving to generic drugs and make medicine affordable to the 
poor people in these countries. So all of the billionaire class, all of 
the powerful corporate world is supporting this trade agreement.
  Who is opposing this trade agreement? Well, virtually every trade 
union in America whose job it is to stand up for American workers. They 
are in opposition. I was just at a rally with them the other day. They 
are united. They are in opposition. You have many environmental groups 
that understand this is a bad agreement. You have medical groups that 
understand this is a bad agreement for poor people in developing 
countries, and you have millions of workers in this country who do not 
want to compete. They are not afraid of competition. We are a 
productive country. They do not want to compete against people making 
56 cents an hour or against forced labor in Malaysia. That is where we 
are today.
  Where we are today is, Do we go forward with a failed trade policy or 
do we take a deep breath and say enough is enough? Let us rethink trade 
policy. Let us figure out a way we can grow the American economy, 
create decent jobs in the United States, and, by the way, help poor 
people around the world. All of us want to see wages go up in poor 
countries around the world, but that does not mean wages have got to go 
down in the United States of America. We need a trade agreement that 
works for our people, works for people around the world but is not a 
trade agreement that only works for the Big Money interests in the 
United States.
  I hope very much the Senate will take a real hard look at this trade 
agreement, take a hard look at what people have been saying for years 
about previous trade agreements and say we are not going down this 
failed path anymore.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.