Stop the next corporate takeover!

The World Development Movement is raising the alarm that a new wave of corporate trade deals threaten to increase global inequality, undermine democracy and hand public service provision to multinational companies.

 

The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the USA and the EU will allow big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments.

 

Email your MP today and seek support for full transparency on the TTIP negotiations - to protect democracy, public services and the environment by opposing this aggressive new trade deal.

My Mother by Narayan Surve

When the stars go off
Tall chimney-sirens sound
Daily with fast steps
Marching to the mill
Who looked backwards
And told us so lovingly
"Do not fight with anyone"

Trade in Services Agreement - 'free market ideology gone mad'

Global trade union body Public Services International (PSI) is warning that the proposed Trade in Service Agreement (TISA) will put public healthcare, broadcasting, water, transport and other services at risk. The proposed deal could make it impossible for future governments to restore public services to public control, even in cases where private service delivery has failed.
    Rosa Pavanelli General Secretary of PSI said 'this is an attempt to secretly extend the most damaging parts of the infamous GATS agreement that previously sparked global protests. The aim of public services should not be to make profits for large multinational corporations. Ensuring that failed privatizations can never be reversed is free market ideology gone mad'
http://www.world-psi.org/en/psi-special-report-tisa-versus-public-services
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-belanger/talks-on-liberalizing-ser_b_5224373.html

Politicians who deregulate are complicit in workplace deaths & diseases

#IWMD14 ‘Every year workers and their trade unions remember the many thousands world wide that die in workplace accidents each year. We remember those workers that die of occupational diseases. Many of these accidents and deaths because of diseases can be prevented by appropriate laws, controls and sanctions. And while we remember the workers that have died, we also recall those who are responsible for putting pressure on workers to work unsafely, our employers, and those politicians that support the employers such as Commission President Barroso. He is complicit in many of these deaths and diseases by not actively pursuing a European health and safety strategy’ says EPSU in a hard hitting statement to mark International Workers Memorial Day pointing out the stark truth that the European Commission is pursuing a deregulation agenda along the same lines of the UK’s so called red tape challenge:
http://www.epsu.org/a/10390

UKIP under the microscope

The resurgence of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has been based on its anti-immigration and anti-EU stance. But there is more to UKIP than xenophobic nationalism. It has a range of right wing policies hostile to workers’ rights - including putting an end to most legislation concerning weekly working hours, holidays, overtime, redundancy and sick pay. In a recent feature Labour Research examined them in detail:
http://www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=LR&iss=1718&id=idm211216&fromopp=y

House of the poor by Mzi Mahola

When I was a little boy
I never questioned why
A solitary path
Led from a poor man’s hut.

Why it zigzagged
Like the trail of a wounded beast.

Now that I’m a burdened man
I know why the rich are troubled
When we grumble.

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/5383/10/Mzi-Mahola