11) LABOUR NEEDS A STRATEGY OF MASS STRUGGLE TO DEFEAT FREE TRADE DEALS
By Ed Grystar
Negotiations between the US, Europe and the Pacific on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue in secrecy and with a blackout by the mainstream media. Ostensibly branded as trade negotiations whose aim is to abolish tariffs, these deals are essentially power grabs by multinational corporations to remove regulatory barriers on their profits. Of the TPP’s 29 draft chapters, only five deal with traditional trade issues. The majority would strip governments, workers and citizens of health and safety regulations, environmental protections, food safety rules and other policies benefitting the public.
Because of this blackout, the public and congress itself are prevented from knowing the details of the talks. Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch reports that it is only through “leaks” that much of the information of these deals is made public. However, over 600 corporate “trade advisors” have full access to the texts.
Both trade deals reveal the utter collapse of democracy in the USA and the complete subservience of both major parties to the whims of moneyed interests. Obama, who campaigned on “transparency” in 2008 and pledged to avoid secret NAFTA type deals, has signed a 2010 agreement with the other countries that keeps the negotiations secret.
Proposals included in these Frankenstein-like deals roll back the minimal banking regulations enacted to protect consumers. Any governmental financial regulation would be subordinated to the extreme version of a deregulated system. A tax on financial transactions is not permitted. Exemptions for big pharmaceutical companies to extend patents from eight to twelve years, and perhaps even longer, would raise prices and restrict access to many needed drugs. The TPP weakens food standards by altering or eliminating any regulations that ban or restrict such things as pesticides and toxins, so they comply with any weaker international standards. Governments would also be penalized if they offered preferences like “prevailing wages”, buy American, or “sweatshop free,” since the language in the TPP says that all corporations in the countries that sign the agreement must have equal access to the public monies spent by national, state, and local governments. Both agreements aim to create new markets for private investors by opening up public services to privatization in critical areas such as health, education and water.
The TPP cannot be changed or modified by any new president or Congress. Once it’s signed, all modifications must be agreed by all countries. If a new congress or president wants to sever or get out of the agreement, there is also a ten year look-back period when corporations can still sue for damages.
To administer these horrendous proposals, a major goal is to establish and impose “foreign investor privileges and rights” and create a private enforcement mechanism through an “investor-state” system. This new system will allow foreign corporations to challenge health, safety, environmental laws and regulations in individual countries. Incredibly, it will grant corporations and investors equal rights with a country’s government, and above its citizens. This means that corporations can avoid national courts and challenge governments before courts of private lawyers operating under rules of the World Bank and the UN. These “courts” would be empowered to grant taxpayer compensation for domestic regulatory policies that corporations and investors believe diminish their “future profits.” Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has appropriately called the TPP a corporate coup d’état.
The mainstream corporate media essentially ignores these secret negotiations. They also conveniently never ask why the Republicans, who supposedly despise Obama and his “liberal agenda,” and have majorities in the House and Senate, suddenly have total confidence in his ability to negotiate and complete these treaties. Many Republican leaders are pushing for “fast track” authority in Congress.
How can this be? The media pundits and liberals constantly complain of a gridlocked Congress with supposed intractable ideological differences between the two parties. It’s a phony difference without distinction and shows that big money pulls the strings in Congress. When the interests of capital are involved, suddenly the two parties of big business find common ground to get things done. After all, this Congress is now the richest in history with the median wealth of an individual member now over 1 million dollars, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The interests of the working people have no organized expression in this rigged setup.
The naked power of big business, the duplicity of the two major parties, and the outrageous examples in these trade proposals must be widely disseminated in a mass “boots on the ground” and media campaign by labour. The AFL-CIO and many individual unions and other organizations are on record as opposed to these deals in their present form. But labour’s overall political strategy continues to rely on an ineffective top down inside the beltway lobbying approach, rather than using its resources to educate and mobilize a real grassroots movement.
Mike Dolan of the Citizens Trade Campaign summed it up: “currently, the European movement against the TTIP is better organized in terms of protest than the U.S. counterpart, especially when it comes to turn-out, crowd-building, and militancy of messages and tactics. I was reminded of this during a TTIP demonstration in Brussels in March 2014, outside the European Commission headquarters, the windows of which ended up covered with milk. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., the capital of the great trade hegemon and the headquarters of so many of the organizations that comprise the fair trade coalitions, even the mobilization for a small protest during the negotiations in December 2014 was a challenge.”
One has to ask: where is the outrage of labour, and who do they picture as villains? Can labour continue to defend a President, their “labour management partners”, and the two major political parties that all openly advocate the surrender of their ability to negotiate, amend and or alter a major piece of legislation? Why are the central labour councils and other union resources not mobilized to hold public town hall meetings across the country? Why not picket lines at congressional and corporate offices? Where are the union and community phone banks to mobilize the membership and public into action, and form the foundation of a real alternative grassroots movement against the corporate takeover of our society?
Because the US labour leaders are beholden to the failed policy of “labour management cooperation” and a political strategy of supporting Democrats, their approach is essentially weak, bureaucratic, top-down lobbying. Without organized pressure from below, they are either incapable or unwilling to mobilize and build the independent movement that is necessary and entirely possible given the clear class nature of these corporate attacks, which essentially replace any pretense of democracy with the private rule of capitalists. Labour campaigned for and spent millions of dollars to elect President Obama, who returns the favour by openly campaigning for these secretive corporate takeovers – yet labour’s only response is to send an email in protest? Labour extols the virtues of “labour management harmony,” yet their corporate “partners”, the real forces behind the monstrous deals, continue to escape unscathed.
It’s hard to gain credibility and win followers if your message is not clear. As long as the song of harmony between labour and capital is the foundation of labour’s strategy, its program to defend workers and defeat these trade deals will be inherently weakened. Recognizing the incompatibility of any partnership with these capitalist forces and their political allies is the starting point for developing a real people’s campaign to stop these trade deals and move labour to an offensive position.
Why not start with an honest dialogue with the rank and file membership about the real face of capital and its political allies who are bent on destroying their jobs, public services, and communities with unfettered capitalism.
A real commitment to building grassroots power is the only foundation that can win. The ugly proposals inside these trade deals can and should be used as examples to the rank and file of why labour needs a new approach grounded in education, mobilization, and independent politics. A labour movement that fights can win. A labour movement that partners with capital and a corrupt two party political system is destined to lose.
(With over 40 years experience in the labour, political, peace and health care movements, Ed Grystar has worked as a steelworker, teacher and for a number of labour organizations. He served as President of Butler County (Pa.) United Labour Council for 15 years. He can be reached at egrystar@aol.com)
(The above article is from the March 16-31, 2015 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)