Labor
Needs a Strategy of Mass Struggle to Defeat
the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP)
and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade
Deals
The negotiations for free trade deals between the US , Europe and
the Pacific continue to proceed in secrecy and with a blackout by the
mainstream media. While ostensibly branded as trade negotiations whose aim is
to increase trade by abolishing tariffs, these deals are essentially power
grabs by multinational corporations to remove regulatory barriers on their
profits. Of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.P.P) 29 draft chapters, only 5
deal with traditional trade issues. The majority would strip governments,
workers and citizens of health and safety regulations, environmental
protections, food safety rules and other policies benefitting the public.
Because of
this blackout, the public and congress itself is prevented from knowing the
details of the talks. Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch reports that it is
only through “leaks” of the actual negotiations that much of the information of
these deals is made public. However,
over 600 corporate “trade advisors” have full access to the texts.
Both trade deals reveal the utter collapse of
democracy in the USA
Proposals included in these Frankenstein like
deals roll back the minimal banking regulations enacted to protect consumers. Any
governmental financial regulation would be subordinated to the extreme version
of a deregulated system contained in the upcoming proposals. A tax on financial
transactions is not permitted. In health
care, exemptions for big pharmaceutical companies to extend patents from eight
to twelve years and perhaps even longer would raise prices and restrict access
to many needed drugs. The TPP weakens food standards by altering or eliminating
any regulations that ban or restrict such things as pesticides and toxins so
they comply with any weaker international standards. Governments would also be
penalized if they offered preferences like “prevailing wages”, buy American, or
“sweatshop free” since the language in the TPP says that all corporations in
the countries that sign the agreement must have equal access to the public
monies spent by national, state, and local governments. Both Agreements aim to create new markets for
private investors by opening up public services to privatization in critical
areas such as health, education and water.
The TPP cannot be changed or modified by any new
president or Congress. Once it’s signed, all modifications must be agreed by
all countries. If a new congress or
president wants to sever or get out of the agreement, there is also a ten year
look back period when corporations can still sue for damages.
To administer these and many more horrendous proposals,
a major goal is to establish and impose “foreign investor privileges and
rights” and create a private enforcement mechanism
through a procedure called the “investor-state”
system. This new system will allow
foreign corporations to challenge health, safety, environmental laws and
regulations in individual countries.
Incredibly, it will grant corporations and investors equal rights with a
country’s government and above its citizens.
This means that corporations can avoid national courts and challenge
governments before courts of private lawyers operating under rules of the World
Bank and the UN. These “courts” would be
empowered to grant taxpayer compensation for domestic regulatory policies that
corporations and investors believe diminish their “future profits.” Lori Wallach
of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has appropriately called the TPP a
corporate coup d’état.
.
While the
mainstream corporate media essentially ignores these secret trade negotiations,
they also conveniently never ask why the Republicans who supposedly despise
Obama and his “liberal agenda” and have majorities in the House and Senate
suddenly now have total confidence in his ability to negotiate and complete these
treaties. Many Republican leaders are
pushing for “fast track” authority in Congress.
None other than Paul Ryan, who is portrayed as one
who abhors all things emanating from the Democrats and is the current Republican
chair of the powerful House Ways and Means committee in Congress is quoted in
the New York Times of February 7, 2015 that granting Mr. Obama fast track
authority is the right thing to do, “sooner than later is my preference,” he
said. Teaming up with Ryan on the Senate
side is the ranking Democrat in the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, who
has joined with Republicans to push for fast track authority.
How can this be? The media pundits and liberals constantly
complain of a gridlocked Congress with supposed intractable ideological
differences between the two parties? It’s a phony difference without distinction and
shows that big money pulls the strings of both parties and is the real power in
Congress. When the interests of capital
are involved, suddenly the two parties of big business find common ground to get
things done that benefit the ruling class.
After all, this Congress is now the richest in history with the median
wealth of an individual member now over 1 million dollars according to the
Center for Responsive Politics. The interests of the working people have no organized
expression in this rigged setup.
The naked power of big business, the secrecy, duplicity
of the two major parties and outrageous examples in these proposed trade
proposals must be widely disseminated in a mass “boots on the ground” and media
campaign by labor. The AFL-CIO and many
individual unions are on record as opposed to these deals in there present form
and are listed with numerous other organizations who are against these
deals. But labor’s overall political
strategy continues to rely on an ineffective top down inside the beltway
lobbying approach rather than using its resources to educate and mobilize a
real grassroots movement.
Mike Dolan of
the Citizens Trade Campaign summed it up in the following quote,” currently, the European movement against the TTIP
is better organized in terms of protest than the U.S. counterpart, especially
when it comes to turn-out, crowd-building, and militancy of messages and
tactics. I was reminded of this during a TTIP demonstration in Brussels Washington D.C.
Given the secrecy and extremely negative
consequences that will occur upon passage, one has to ask where the outrage of
labor is and who do they picture as villains? Can labor continue to defend a President,
their “labor management partners” and the two major political parties that all
openly advocate the surrendering of their ability to negotiate, amend and or
alter a major piece of legislation? Why are the central labor councils and other
union resources not mobilized with the other organizations to hold public town
hall meetings across the country? Why
not picket lines at congressional and corporate offices? Where are the union and community phone banks
that can be utilized to mobilize the membership and public into action and form
the foundation of a real alternative grassroots movement against the corporate
takeover of our society?
Because the US labor leaders are beholden to
the failed policy of “labor management cooperation” and a political strategy
that is conditioned on supporting Democrats, their approach to defeating these deals is
essentially a weak, bureaucratic and top down “inside the beltway” lobbying
approach. It’s apparent that without organized pressure from below, they are
either incapable or unwilling to mobilize its membership and build an independent
movement that is not only necessary but entirely possible given the clear class
nature of these corporate attacks.
These deals are bad not
only for working people but they also essentially destroy any pretense of
democracy in the US
It’s hard to gain
credibility and win followers if your message is not clear. As long as the song
of harmony between labor and capital is the foundation of labors strategy, its
program to defend workers and defeat these trade deals will be inherently
weakened. Recognizing the
incompatibility of any partnership with these capitalist forces and their
political allies is the starting point for
developing a real people’s campaign to stop these trade deals and move labor to
an offensive position.
Why not start with an
honest dialogue with the rank and file membership about the real face of
capital and its political allies who are bent on destroying their jobs, public
services, and communities with unfettered capitalism.
A real commitment to building grassroots power
is the only foundation that can win. The ugly proposals inside these trade
deals can and should be used as examples to the rank and file of why labor
needs a new approach grounded in education, mobilization, and independent
politics. A labor movement that fights
can win. A labor movement that partners with capital and a corrupt two party political
system is destined to lose.
Ed Grystar
Over 40 years experience in the labor, political,
peace and health care movements. Has worked as a steelworker, teacher and for a
number of labor organizations. He served as President of Butler
County (Pa.
He can be reached at egrystar@aol.com
March 1,
2015
