WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco and Amy Browne

Topic:  The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act (The TRADE Act,  sponsored by Congressperson Mike Michaud; The Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission and it’s 12/4 public hearing in Bangor

The Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission, the first of it’s kind in the country, was formed to examine the impacts of Free Trade policies on Maine and beyond, and has charged itself with communicating with the state’s Washington delegation and the US Trade Representative. The Commission will hold it’s second public hearing tonight .  Today we’ll speak with Commission member Cynthia Phinney. She represents labor on the Commission.
But first we’d like to turn to Congressman Michaud for a perspective from the national front. He has been consistently one of the most vocal people in Congress concerning free trade agreements and their deleterious impacts on labor and human rights, the environment and jobs and the economy. He co-founded the House Trade Working Group, and now along with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is co sponsoring The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act, also called the TRADE Act, which proposes to review all current trade agreements and renegotiate them based on that review, The Act would also set new standards for any future policies. Mike Michaud , a long time paper mill worker and union member before joining Congress, has opposed the Peru Free Trade Agreement, the currently proposed Colombia Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

FMI: Maine Congressional Representative Mike Michaud, website:http://www.michaud.house.gov/
Cynthia Phinney, union local 1837, labor rep. on Maine Citizen Trade Policy , website:  http://maine.gov/legis/opla/citpol.htm
Bill Holland, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, websitehttp://www.citizen.org/trade/