9 June, 2015The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), together with national trade union centres, is demanding transparency in discussions over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) — a free trade agreement currently being negotiated in secret.
The ITUC has launched an online petition targeting TPP trade ministers asking them to stop negotiations and release the text. The petition is in English, Spanish and French.
The trade agreement is being negotiated between 12 nations - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
“Trade deals being done behind closed doors are setting up working people to lose out and aiming to concentrate yet more power and wealth in the hands of multinational corporations, at the expense of the common good,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
The ITUC’s petition says:
“A good agreement should put people first by enforcing International Labour Organization core labour rights, protecting the environment and public services, not allowing special rights to foreign investors to sue governments thereby undermining local, state and national decisions and laws, and promoting affordable access to vital medicines with fair patent rules. Concluding the TPP before making its sweeping rules public is not consistent with open, participatory governance.”