Brussels, 10
November 2011 (ITUC OnLine): Fears of the negative impact of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement have been confirmed with the text of
the agreement finally released on 5 November, after years of secret
negotiations.
Sharan Burrow,
ITUC General Secretary, said “The peoples of the TPP countries are being told
to accept a trade deal that risks jobs, public services and democratic
rights. There has been no public consultation, but business interests
were given an inside track in the negotiations and their influence is written
all over the agreement.”
“Trade between
countries is essential, but this deal hands extensive and unacceptable rights
and privileges to multinational corporations to protect their own investments
at the expense of the basic principles of democracy. It fails to protect
workers and it fails to protect the environment.”
The agreement
enshrines the notorious Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism, which
allows companies to sue governments in business-dominated tribunals when they
deem that government decisions affect their investments or potential
profits.
“Business will
rule itself, and be able to wield a big stick over governments, while workers
are left out in the cold. It’s no wonder that people in countries across
the world reject lop-sided agreements like the TPP,” said Burrow.
At the beginning
of the negotiation process, unions in the TPP countries proposed a labour
chapter that would garner their support if adopted [insert link]. The actual
TPP labour chapter, while including minor concessions to the unions’ concerns,
fails to include the most critical amendments that workers in TPP countries had
proposed. It does not refer directly to ILO Conventions. The labour chapter
still relies on a state-state dispute mechanism which relies entirely on the
discretion of TPP governments to prosecute claims against one another; this
stands in stark contrast to the investor-state mechanisms available to
corporations. In the US, such labour cases have taken several years, with the
Guatemala case still not completed after seven years. Enhanced
protections for migrant workers were omitted from the TPP, just as a crisis in
migrant workers’ rights is unfolding globally. Proposed mechanisms to
enhance industrial relations transnationally were also left out.
“We are deeply
disappointed that governments again failed to negotiate strong labour
protections which workers could be confident would be respected and
enforced. Multinational corporations are the clear winners, at the
expense of working people and environmental sustainability,” added
Burrow.
Trade unions have
serious questions on a range of other aspects of the agreement.
Privatisation is locked-in in many areas, and governments’ right to maintain or
introduce laws and regulations are constrained by a “regulatory coherence”
chapter. Prices of medicines will increase and the production of
generic and affordable drugs will be blocked due to the TPP provisions for
extended pharmaceutical patents, protection of test data and market protection
for patented drugs.
National data
protection rules can now be challenged, and unregulated transfer of personal
data across borders is permitted, increasing the probability of abusive use of
the internet by giant corporations. New rules in financial services will
allow big financial institutions to expand their market share, in direct
contradiction to efforts to avoid the “too big to fail” financial conglomerates
which drove the global financial crisis and forced governments to use taxpayer
funds for bailouts.
The TPP
development chapter contains statements but no action – a committee without
power will be set up, and provisions in other chapters have explicit priority
over any development goals.
“Governments have
been able to keep most of this secret, but now that the agreement is public,
everyone can see that it is little more than a series of gifts to the top end
of town. Politicians are going to have a very hard time getting the
public to accept this bad deal,” said Burrow.
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