176 Million Workers Call to Stop TPP Negotiations

Opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial trade pact being secretly negotiated between 12 Pacific Rim nations, continues to balloon. This week 176 million workers from the world’s largest trade union added their voice to the growing list of organizations and individuals speaking out against the trade pact.

On Tuesday, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) released a statement calling on governments to halt TPP negotiations. The ITUC’s opposition to the TPP is significant not only because of the union’s size, but also its breadth of representation: the ITUC has 325 affiliates in 161 countries and territories, including major labor unions in 9 of the 12 TPP countries.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, explained the confederation’s declaration of TPP opposition: “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.”

ITUC’s concerns are widely shared: the pact is being negotiated in secret, excluding the input of civil society, experts, and lawmakers, while providing significant access to corporate interests. Also addressed in ITUC’s statement is the TPP’s inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement, a provision which empowers corporations to « sue » national governments before extrajudicial tribunals and demand compensation for « expected future profits » if they feel a country’s domestic policies have undermined special rights for foreign firms. The statement also mentions that the TPP would likely increase the cost of life-saving medicines (a worry validated by the recent leak of the Intellectual Property chapter).

Despite these concerns, TPP negotiators are moving ahead quickly to try to finish the beleaguered deal. Earlier this week, TPP country leaders met around the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to discuss the TPP. U.S. President Obama urged leaders to work to « break some of the remaining logjams » of the agreement. Those « logjams » include environmental protections, policies ensuring affordable medicine, and safeguards on sovereignty and democracy.

While negotiators continue to miss deadlines to close the deal, opposition continues to grow among labor unions, activists, lawmakers, environmental advocates, consumer organizations, economists, and a wide-array of other individuals and groups. Negotiators and governments should heed ITUC’s call, halt the TPP negotiations, and take a moment to reflect on exactly what why there is so much disapproval of the TPP.

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