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labour | workers’ rights

US and EU unions criticise transatlantic trade deal
10-Jul-2014 FT
The largest trade unions in the US and EU are calling for protections for online privacy and the dropping of special protections for foreign investors as part of a long series of demands to secure their backing for a transatlantic trade pact.
AFL-CIO and ETUC issue "Declaration of Joint Principles"
10-Jul-2014 ETUC
Ahead of the 6th round of EU-US trade negotiations taking place next week in Brussels, the US and European trade unions AFL-CIO and ETUC have issued a "Declaration of Joint Principles".
Why workers should unite against Canada’s next-generation trade deals
3-Jul-2014 rabble.ca
With Canada’s labour movement searching for alternative economic models for a post-crisis, climatically unstable world, the government’s new trade and investment pacts are barriers to a better future and must be resisted.
Commission closes TTIP consultation — But is it listening?
1-Jul-2014 ETUC
Bernadette Ségol the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation says trade unionists are “particularly concerned at statements from DG Trade implying that the consultation is about a reform of the ISDS system and is not open to a decisive rejection.”
Bernadette Ségol (ETUC) & Richard Trumka (AFL-CIO) - Joint video interview on TTIP
4-Jun-2014 ETUC
Joint interview on TTIP by Bernadette Ségol, ETUC General Secretary & Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President
ITUC delegates give a resounding “No” to Trans Pacific Partnership
23-May-2014 PSI
In a poll taken at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Congress in Berlin, Germany, 90% of the voters overwhelmingly rejected the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal, supporting the statement that “the TPP should not go ahead and must be scrapped.”
TTIP must work for the people, or it won’t work at all
22-May-2014
Leaders of the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations and the European Trade Union Confederation today call for a "gold standard" EU-US trade deal that improves living and working conditions on both sides of the Atlantic.
No to trade deals that threaten democracy!
21-May-2014 IUF
A new publication from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) exposes the corporate power grab at the core of two mega-treaties: TPP and TTIP
NDP: Harper gov’t report on human rights abuses in Colombia is a ’sham’
21-May-2014 Canadian Press
The New Democratic Party and civil society groups are accusing the Harper government of whitewashing human rights abuses in Colombia in the latest report to Parliament on the impact of Canada’s free trade agreement with the South American country.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the rights of Mexican workers
12-May-2014 Global Research
The deep integration of the continent makes a continental labour response necessary and possible. However, the prospects of such a response depend on the political evolution in the Mexican working-class on both sides of the border, the political evolution of unions in North America, and more general developments in the politics and economy of each country.
In Colombia, free trade brings more poverty and more killings
5-May-2014 TruthOut
Colombian unions and farmers opposed the free trade agreement strongly, and today hold it responsible for increasing poverty while fostering a climate in which corporate rights are paramount and labor rights hardly exist.
Must we link trade to social and environmental standards?
29-Apr-2014 Srfood.org
The inclusion of "sustainable development" chapters in bilateral trade agreements has generally met with resistance from the EU’s trading partners.
Colombia: Where dockers sell their paycheques for loans
24-Apr-2014 Equal Times
The conditions of Buenaventura’s longshore workers, and the harsh reprisals against them for trying to form unions, dramatically illustrate the failure of Colombia’s Labor Action Plan.
China wants to import workers under FTA
15-Apr-2014 FInancial Review
The Australian government is facing demands from China that it be allowed to import workers for projects funded by Chinese investors as part of the free-trade agreement.
Jon Weissman: A free trade pact’s sorry numbers
28-Mar-2014 Gazette Net
New evidence of the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement’s damaging record provides the latest reason why Congress should not delegate away its constitutional trade authority and allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked” into place.
Trans-Atlantic labor union calls for higher labor standards in US-European Union trade agreement
27-Mar-2014 Workers Uniting
"We view TTIP as a threat to the rights of workers in Europe," said Len McCluskey, General Secretary of UNITE the Union in the UK and Ireland. "We can’t afford to import America’s low labor rights standards."
Mexico: NAFTA has not created jobs for us
15-Mar-2014 El Sol de Tijuana
Dr Robert A. Blecker, a researcher of the Economics Department at the American University in Washington admitted that the North American Free Trade Agreement has not led to economic growth, much less to job creation in Mexico.
Canadian auto industry denounces free trade agreement
13-Mar-2014 Mississuaga
A union representing about 3,000 workers at the Chrysler Group in Brampton is saying a just-announced free trade agreement between Canada and South Korea poses a “serious threat” to the Canadian auto industry.
What does the TTIP really mean for workers?
11-Mar-2014 Equal Times
As public awareness increases about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an EU-US trade deal being negotiated behind closed doors, so too do concerns about its potential impact.
Stephen Harper heads to South Korea to ink long-awaited free-trade pact
9-Mar-2014
Prime Minister Stephen Harper departed Sunday for South Korea, widely expected to complete another long round of free-trade negotiations that his critics were denouncing as secretive and potentially bad for Canadian workers.