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Global Union Leaders: Open Trans-Pacific Trade Talks
Trade union leaders of nations involved in talks to create the latest international trade deal—the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement (TPPTA)—are calling for the negotiations to be inclusive and open, not conducted behind closed doors with a few corporate players, as too many other deals have been.
In a letter sent earlier this month to the trade ministers of Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and the United States, union leaders say that workers’ voices must be part of the negotiating process.
The leaders, who include AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, recommended:
- Setting up meetings at the negotiations where representatives of civil society groups can be regularly briefed about the content of the talks.
- Establishing regular channels between governments and groups such as unions and employers so they can be meaningfully involved.
- Making sure TPPTA governments consult with indigenous groups in their country on trade issues that may affect them, as required by International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169.
- Creating a joint TPPTA website, where detailed information about the trade negotiations is posted and updated regularly. The site also should allow non-government groups to post their analyses and proposals about the trade deal.
You can read the letter here.
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1 Comment
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Here we have another of Mr. Trumka’s “Wish Lists”!!
Is Mr. Trumka and organized labor just now realizing that foreign trade deals can actually hurt working people in this country?
The NAFTA and CAFTA trade deals have kept the majority of working people in Mexico and Central America impoverished for years, enriching the multi-national corporations and the local ruling elites in the target countries. These treaties have been the cause of massive migration (legal and illegal) of millions of impoverished peoples to the U.S.
For decades, millions of jobs have left for China and Asia sweat-shops, de-industrializing this country….. without any serious opposition by the “leaders” of organized labor.
As long as Mr. Trumka and the AFL-CIO leadership continue to support Obama and the Democrats and fail to elect labor leaders and working people to Congress, nothing will change.
The vast majority of working people, watching corporate owned mass media and listening to Rush Limbaugh every day,
will never understand what or why they are being by these foreign treaties written exclusively to maximize the profit of U.S. based multi-national corporations.
This is how the capitalist globalization system works. The gangster capitalists will not change their behavior in any substantial way to satisfy the “wish list” demands of the powerless labor movement.
The trade movement now must organize all working people into a political party and replace the corrupt politicians of both Democratic and Republican parties who are subservient to corporate money and agendas.