The U.S. House of Representatives in the wee morning hours of July 24, under the cover of darkness (literally, 3:48 a.m. Saturday morning!!!), voted 215-212 to approve fast-track trade legislation.

Incredibly, this vote happened even though members of the House received the 400-page House-Senate conference committee report less than six hours earlier, while dealing with the huge Homeland Security legislation. How many members of the House even had a chance to read the 400-page "compromise"? Did Rep. Melissa Hart even bother to read it, or consider its ramifications on the 4th Congressional District before she voted for it?

And what did the House-Senate conference report contain? Any minimal Senate provisions protecting workers were taken out or severely weakened. The worker retraining and health-care provisions are a sham and a disgrace. Only workers who can prove that imports played a direct role in their job loss can qualify for the minimal retraining provisions (the money for which has not even been appropriated).

Even under NAFTA, workers who lost their jobs because their employer closed their plant and moved the work off-shore (the reason for 75 percent of all job losses) qualified for retraining. However, under the "compromise," workers who lose their jobs because their employer closes and relocates to another country don’t qualify for retraining!

The health-care provision is a cruel hoax. How many unemployed workers can buy their health-care insurance monthly and wait until tax time to file for the tax credit provisions of the "compromise?"

The child labor protections were taken out of the bill. Worker rights and environmental protections were never even considered. And how about the Chapter 11 provision under NAFTA, which allows transnational corporations to sue governments (local,state or federal) if a corporation says that a worker right, environmental protection or whatever impinges on its profits? Not a word!

This fast-track "compromise" that Rep. Hart whole-heartedly supported, is the biggest attack on worker rights, environmental protections and democratic procedures in decades.