04) GOVERNMENTS MUST REJECT TPP: STEELWORKERS

 

            Last December, Canadian and U.S. leaders of the United Steelworkers (USW), North America’s largest industrial union, called on the governments of both countries to reject the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

 

            The USW’s International Executive Board adopted a formal resolution which forms the basis of a fully engaged TPP rejection campaign in each country.

 

            “The TPP will only continue the failed trade policies of the past that have valued corporate profits, wherever obtained, over the interests of job and opportunity creation here at home. The USW will put every effort into defeating the TPP,” the resolution states.

 

            “Our members and all working families in our countries cannot afford more bad trade policies, flawed enforcement and misplaced priorities from which they have suffered for far too long from previous trade deals,” said Ken Neumann, USW National Director for Canada.

 

            “Working people need trade policies that lift wages up, rather than pushing them down. We need trade deals that reduce our trade deficits and promote domestic manufacturing and job creation, rather than more outsourcing and offshoring. We need policies that will reverse the widening gap of income inequality,” Neumann said.

 

            The TPP threatens Canadian jobs by facilitating greater offshoring in the auto and manufacturing sectors, in value-added processing of mining and forestry resources, and in the telecommunications sector, Neumann added. “Our governments must reject the TPP and send it back to the negotiating table.”

 

Excerpts from USW International Executive Board Resolution on TPP

 

            The United Steelworkers union (USW) is the largest industrial union in North America representing 1.2 million active and retired members in the United States and Canada with members working in virtually every tradable sector from mining and metals, glass and rubber, paper and forestry, automotive and aerospace products and countless other areas....

 

            For workers in manufacturing and the communities that depend upon their success, the agreement would  be particularly devastating because it fails to address some of the most important challenges that have decimated the manufacturing sector in recent years.

 

            Rules of origin for autos and auto parts in the TPP would be particularly devastating to USW members because the standards would further diminish the percent of a car’s content, by value, which must come from TPP countries in order to benefit from TPP preferential trade protections: The North American Free Trade Agreement set the standard at 62.5 percent; the US-Australia FTA lowered that to 50 percent; the recent U.S.-Korea FTA cut the standard to 35 percent, and the TPP further slashes it to 45 percent, allowing 55 percent of a car’s content, by value, to come from China and still be stamped “Made In America or Canada” and receive TPP benefits.

 

            Negotiators may have worsened this rule of origin problem for USW members who work in the auto parts, glass and other industries by including a provision that would allow auto body parts made of steel or aluminum, and possibly glass and other products, to be considered  “domestically” produced with only minimal changes, thus in effect reducing the 45 percent content threshold identified in the text to as low as 30 percent or 35 percent, thereby ensuring that production in this vital sector will continue to be offshored and outsources.

 

            The TPP would facilitate the export of unprocessed raw materials, particularly from Canada’s forestry and mining sectors, because the trade agreement would render it more difficult for governments to implement job creation strategies to process raw materials domestically...

 

            The TPP fails to utilize the standards embodied in the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions to ensure that workers’ rights are implemented across every workplace and subject to effective enforcement. The TPP fails to meet the promise that it would be a  “high-standards, 21^st Century trade agreement” in the area of workers’ rights, representing not only a missed opportunity but also limiting the ability of workers to share in the very prosperity that they will be working so hard to create for multinational firms through their labour.

 

            TPP countries would be required to adopt laws to provide for a minimum wage, but that wage may be only pennies an hour to be acceptable under the TPP. The TPP fails to adequately define basic standards for workers’ rights and allows labour standards to be open to continuing redefinition that multinational corporations view as fair and appropriate so that their executives, boards of directors and shareholders can profit at workers’ expense...                

 

(The above article is from the February 15-29, 2016, 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.)