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labour | workers’ rights

Concerns over Việt Nam-EU FTA signing
2-Aug-2018 VNS
Việt Nam still needs to ratify - or commit to ratify - three conventions among eight core conventions of the International Labour Organisation required for the approval of the EVFTA by the EU
Mexico’s historic election: A labor perspective
1-Aug-2018 TJA
The recent election in Mexico is a referendum on the global reaction to the neoliberal assaults accompanying trade deals like NAFTA and TPP. Listen to this webinar with Manuel Perez-Rocha and Héctor de la Cueva
Briefer: Mega-FTAs and its implications on Asian Workers
17-Jul-2018 APRN
Cross-regional mega-FTAs are now being preferred over bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements as imperialist powers compete for cheap labor, sources of raw materials, and markets.
Mexico’s landslide election: A labor perspective
12-Jul-2018 The Action Network
Trade justice alliance webinar on Sunday 15 July
RCEP: India must uphold peoples’ rights and welfare
11-Jul-2018 APRN
Joining the RCEP would definitely have economic, social and environmental costs for India. Threats to the livelihoods of millions of farmers and workers due to cheaper imports are real and present danger.
Lana Payne: Trading away the potential for stronger labour rights
11-Jul-2018 The Telegram
With all the talk of demanding labour rights under NAFTA that are progressive and enforceable, it begs the question: what happened to demanding those rights when negotiating the new Trans-Pacific trade deal?
Humanitarian crisis scenarios, Central American migrants in Mexico
19-Jun-2018 Alainet
The current dimension of international migration is related to the global dynamics of neoliberal capitalism and its effects.
Liberals’ corporate-friendly TPP trade deal will kill Canadian jobs, increase inequality
15-Jun-2018 Newswire
The TPP is first and foremost a corporate-rights deal for multinationals. It will worsen inequality, further erode Canada’s manufacturing and industrial base.
A globalisation for people, not business
5-Jun-2018 Social Europe
Globalisation is in crisis because of its almost totalitarian outreach to all areas of everyday life. People feel a loss of control, because their way of life is perceived as subject to trade requests solely for the benefit of globally acting firms.
Veolia loses ISDS case against Egypt – after six years and millions in costs
4-Jun-2018 AFTINET
Veolia has finally lost its claim against Egypt over a waste management contract dispute in which they claimed compensation for an increase in the minimum wage under a new labour law.
Legitimising an unsustainable approach to trade
28-May-2018 Power Shift
Simply throwing labour (or the environment, or sustainable development) objectives into the FTA mix adds a facade of legitimacy to the process of “deep integration” of neoliberal economic polices which are inherently antagonistic to these objectives.
Sri Lanka FTAs: stupidity or treachery?
16-May-2018
The President of Sri Lanka expressed that his government will safeguard the local industrialists. In several occasions, he has mentioned that the government does not want to go for trade agreements that are deleterious to the country’s economy. However, in January this year, the president was seated in the high chair clapping when the bilateral trade agreement with Singapore is signed, which liberalized the country’s service sector effectively for the first time.
NAFTA math may not add up to more US auto jobs
14-May-2018 Reuters
Trump administration demands in NAFTA trade negotiations meant to push auto jobs back to the United States may not be enough to spark a shift in where automakers build cars and trucks.
Mexico offers Nafta compromise on car content, wages
9-May-2018 Bloomberg
Mexico is opening the door to compromise on the key Nafta issue of auto manufacturing, though it’s unclear if the flexibility is enough to reach a deal with the US and Canada.
US wants 4-year phase-in for higher NAFTA auto content thresholds
2-May-2018 Reuters
The latest US proposal for increasing NAFTA’s regional automotive content would carry a four-year phase-in to meet a higher, 75 percent regional value threshold and new labor content rules requiring substantial work at wages of $16 an hour or higher.
Higher auto wages the centrepiece of major US NAFTA proposal
30-Mar-2018 BNN
Mexican workers’ wages are at the heart of a major proposal from the United States aimed at breaking through an impasse on automobiles and securing a new North American Free Trade Agreement.
Teamsters raise concerns on Canada-Mercosur trade talks
26-Mar-2018 Cision
The union is concerned that the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership could be used as a model for talks with Mercosur.
Trade deals must work for rural women say participants at key UN session
15-Mar-2018 UNCTAD
Trade agreements must take into account the concerns of the millions of women who earn their living off the land in developing countries, participants said at a meeting held during the 62nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York organized by UNCTAD and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development (APWLD).
Don’t sign CFTA, Labour; ex-NACCIMMA boss, others beg Buhari
12-Mar-2018 Vanguard
Organised labour pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari not to sign the African Continental Free Trade Agreement CFTA.
Workers reject terms of Mercosur-EU agreement
5-Mar-2018 Cadena Agramonte
The Coordination of Trade Unions of the Southern Cone and the European Trade Union Confederation expressed their disagreement with the terms on which the possible agreement between Mercosur and the European Union is proposed.