Globalization, Trade, and Workers Race to the Bottom

• Globalization increasingly integrates economies of other countries with the U.S.
• Globalization increasingly brings into U.S. homes products made by workers all over the world
• Globalization without rules to protect workers who try to improve their wages and working conditions creates a race to the bottom for workers in any industry, in the U.S. or elsewhere, whose jobs can be moved
• Global trade rules, established by the World Trade Organization (WTO), currently do not protect workers
• U.S. trade rules to protect workers were weakened with the passage of Free Trade Agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA
• Congress began efforts to reverse the weakening of U.S. trade rules to protect workers in the summer of 2007 but there is still a long ways to go to achieve effective trade rules to protect workers.

USLEAP campaigns for effective global trade rules to protect workers and against trade agreements that do not protect workers abroad who organize to improve their wages and working conditions.