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labour | workers’ rights

Can Labour bring labour rights to RCEP?
2-Mar-2018 Newsroom
With RCEP trade deal negotiations resuming in Singapore this week, Edward Miller says the Labour-led coalition will face an early test of its so-called "new approach on trade".
Malmström issues plan to improve implementation of sustainability chapters in EU trade deals
2-Mar-2018 ICTSD
The EU’s top trade official released a plan examining how the bloc can make sure the sustainable development chapters in its trade deals can be applied more effectively.
US, Mexican unions to file NAFTA complaint over labor bill
25-Jan-2018 Reuters
US and Mexican unions will formally complain to the US Labor Department on Thursday that Mexico continues to violate NAFTA’s weak labor standards
Unifor stands firmly in opposition to Trans-Pacific Partnership
24-Jan-2018 Unifor
The TPP failed to meaningfully address the negative consequences of greater trade and investment liberalization, including rising inequality, environmental sustainability, job displacement and lower work standards.
Anchoring labour rights more effectively in EU trade agreements
15-Jan-2018 Social Europe
We have highlighted some of the main limitations of the approach taken and how greater accountability could be established in current agreements.
UK leaving single market for TPP could hit workers’ rights, union warns
5-Jan-2018 The Guardian
TUC delivers stark warning about labour abuses after trade secretary Liam Fox refuses to rule out membership of TPP.
India-UK trade meet to focus on visa restrictions, trade barriers
3-Jan-2018 The Hindu
While the UK can engage in free trade agreement (FTA) talks with other countries including India only after the process of full disengagement from the EU is complete, talks are already happening unofficially on the potential of such a pact.
Japan pushes for March signing of TPP 11
2-Jan-2018 Nikkei
Tokyo’s point man travelling to Vietnam, Mexico to seek consensus on outstanding issues.
Trump and GOP tax cut is handing corporations like Ford a giant incentive to move offshore
13-Dec-2017 Alternet
Giant corporations got what they wanted out of Republicans on taxes, now they’re lobbying the Trump administration hard to retain their NAFTA privileges.
A Canada-style trade deal would be a disaster for Britain’s workers
11-Dec-2017 The Times
Trade unions campaigned against the EU and Canada’s CETA deal because, although it offers lots of protections to foreign investors, it does nowhere near enough to protect workers’ rights and public services.
Outcomes of the trade union conference on economic partnership agreements – Africa/EU
4-Dec-2017 ITUC / ETUC
The Conference gathered 35 participants, comprising leaders from African trade union centres, the ITUC-Africa, ETUC, and ITUC, and experts from civil society and academia.
The US-Mexico wage gap is actually widening under Nafta
29-Nov-2017 Bloomberg
Trade was supposed to kickstart Mexico’s economy. It hasn’t. Stagnation fuels Trump’s anger, leaves Mexicans eyeing change
Mexico gold mine killings jolt NAFTA talks
21-Nov-2017 Reuters
The fatal shooting of two workers in an apparent clash between unions at a Canadian-owned mine in Mexico angered labor activists at NAFTA talks who said the violence was an example of poor labor conditions in the country.
Unions take NAFTA wage fight to Mexican senate
20-Nov-2017 VOA
The head of Canada’s biggest private-sector union headed to Mexico’s Senate, promising to fight at the NAFTA trade pact talks for improved Mexican wages and free collective bargaining as a way of benefiting workers across North America.
Workers say NAFTA’s neoliberal foundations need to be dismantled from the left—not the right
25-Oct-2017 In These Times
Rejecting both economic nationalism and free-market fundamentalism, workers across North America are building transnational solidarity and demanding labor rights for all.
Being a trade unionist in Guatemala will get you killed
19-Oct-2017 Upside Down World
A chapter on labor issues within CAFTA was to provide an improved environment for labor rights. But the Guatemalan state has consistently failed to implement these protections.
Push for Australia to open its doors to Indonesian workers under free trade deal
11-Oct-2017 SMH
Indonesia is pushing for Australia to open its doors to more Indonesian workers - such as nurses and cooks - as well as removing tariffs on textiles as free trade negotiations between the two countries enter the final month.
New free trade agreements: normalising brutal transnational supply chains
6-Oct-2017 GRAIN
Transnational supply chains have been an expanding economic actor since transnational corporations began outsourcing manufacturing to places where extremely low wages, low or non-existing labour safety standards and even slave labour prevailed or were tolerated.
Canada pushes inclusion of strong, progressive labour standards in NAFTA
27-Sep-2017 National Observer
Canada is pushing for the inclusion of enforceable, progressive labour standards in a rewritten North American Free Trade Agreement.
Without US, 11 nations in TPP inch closer to a deal
23-Sep-2017 Reuters
Negotiators met for two days in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, to discuss what parts of the original deal they wished to shelve.