Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said “This
secretive trade deal is good for some multinational corporations, but deeply
damaging to ordinary people and the very role of governments. Corporate interests are at the negotiating
table, but national parliaments and other democratic actors are being kept in
the dark. What we do know, much of it
through leaks, is that this proposed deal is not about ensuring better
livelihoods for people, but about giving multinational companies a big boost to
profits. Governments should shut down
the negotiations, and not re-open them unless they get genuine and transparent
public mandates at home that put people’s interest in the centre.”
The current TPP proposals include provisions which would:
- Make
governments submit to so-called investor to state dispute settlement (ISDS)
procedures whereby investors can sue governments on a wide range of policies,
including environmental and social policies ;
- Introduce
patent protections that would boost pharmaceutical companies’ profits, but put
vital medicines out of reach for millions of poorer people;
- Severely
restrict governments’ ability to make national laws for public health, safety
and general welfare with a ‘regulatory coherence’ chapter;
- Stop
governments from giving priority to public policy aims when making decisions
about public procurement;
- Impose
a series of restrictions on governments’ abilities to regulate the financial
sector, thus holding back efforts to reform damaging financial speculation and
impeding governments from taking measures to maintain their balance of payment.
Proposals for protection of workers’ rights have met with
heavy resistance from some countries, and appear to not cover all ILO
Conventions that establish Fundamental Rights at Work or subnational (state and
province) labour legislation. The
proposals also contain no enforcement for environmental provisions, and fail to
address the need for action to mitigate climate change.
“A fair and open global trading system is essential to
prosperity, but this proposed TPP is nothing of the sort. Global and regional trade needs to create
jobs and prosperity for the many, not just provide welfare for corporations and
transfer more power from the parliaments to the boardroom,” said Burrow.
National trade union centers in the countries negotiating
the TPP are today formally calling on their governments to stop the
negotiations, and to seek a proper negotiation mandate if they are to engage in
the negotiations again.
The national trade union centers that support this call
are: Australia, ACTU; Canada, CSN y CSD; Japan, JTUC-RENGO; Mexico, UNT; New
Zealand, NZCTU; Peru, CUT y CATP; United States, AFL-CIO. Some of these trade
unions, as well as the unions of Chile (CUT-Chile) and Malaysia (MTUC) had
asked for the negotiations to stop at an earlier stage.
The ITUC represents 176 million workers in 161 countries
and territories and has 324 national affiliates.
