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CTU: Major Concerns Regarding Transpacific Partnership
CTU Has Major Concerns Regarding Transpacific Partnership Agreement Negotiations
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions is very concerned at the directions being taken in the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiations, which will begin another round in Auckland on Monday. CTU and other union representatives will be in Auckland to observe the negotiations. The other negotiating countries are headed by the US and include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
"Trade is only a small part of these negotiations", said Bill Rosenberg, CTU Policy Director and Economist, who will be the CTU observer. "In fact most of the proposed agreement covers areas like foreign investment rules, empowering foreign companies to sue our government, opening our services to more international competition, our right to regulate, pharmaceutical costs, intellectual property rights, and preventing use of government procurement to help local firms."
"The big trade interest for New Zealand is agriculture - getting more dairy and other products into the US. But powerful US interests will oppose that every step of the way. Australian exporters were very disappointed at the results of their free trade agreement with the US. It would be naive to believe New Zealand can do any better. If any access is won it is likely to be delayed for a decade or more, by which time there is likely to be greater competition from other international suppliers to the US market and subsidies may still be in place."
Any access will not come free, says Rosenberg. "We will have to pay for it. For example, the price could be reducing our ability to control foreign investment, giving overseas corporations the power to sue our government for millions of dollars and force it to change laws, higher cost of medicines, further loss of our ability to give assistance to local producers, or greater pressures to privatise. If we have to give this sovereignty away to get agricultural export access, we have to ask whether being locked into production of low value-added commodities is really the future New Zealanders want. It is a low value, low quality, low wage path."
Unions will also be pushing for an enforceable labour chapter to prevent the kind of race-to-the-bottom competition to lower labour standards that the government demonstrated in passing the amendment to the Employment Relations Act at the behest of Warner Brothers. "These agreements go much too far in increasing rights for international corporate interests. At the very least they should provide protection for the rights of people who work for their living and make up the great majority of our working age population.
"What is even more disturbing about the negotiations is the degree of secrecy that surrounds them, despite their outcome being more important than most laws that go through Parliament. The text of the agreement will not be available for scrutiny until the deal is signed. Only scraps of information are available until then. This is not how a 21st century agreement should be created.
"We are not against trade. It can provide jobs, but it must be fair. It often has not been fair to working people. But the TPP is about much more than trade. Any trade benefits are likely to be tiny. Unless we receive assurances that the dangers such as those outlined, are being addressed, we will oppose it. We are working with union centres in most of the other TPP countries, and have a common view on a broad range of issues."
Bill Rosenberg will be in Auckland from Monday to Wednesday 6-8 December to observe the negotiations and is available for media comment (please use mobile phone number below).
ENDS
New Zealand Council of Trade Unions
Te Kauae Kaimahi
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi brings together over 350,000 New Zealand union members in 40 affiliated unions. We are the united voice for working people and their families in New Zealand.
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