#stuc15 UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan reminded the STUC in Ayr today about the need for an international response to the TTIP “assault on democratic government”.
A composite from four unions and four local TUCs called on the STUC to campaign against TTIP, support an international protest in Paris in December and to call for politicians who have an interest in the privatisation to declare an interest and abstain on voting on TTIP.
#A18DoA #NoTTIP Today is a Global Day of Action against free trade and investment treaties. Over 25 protests are planned in Britain including a major event ‘Democracy vs TTIP’ at Shepherds Bush Common, London:
https://www.globaltradeday.org/
Many trade unionists will have been disappointed to see Labour include in its General Election manifesto support for the 'principles behind the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Treaty (TTIP)’. Although it goes on to say that a Labour Government ‘will hold the European Commission to account on issues of concern, including the impact on public services and the Investor to State Dispute Settlement Mechanism. And we will ensure the NHS is protected from the TTIP treaty’, this is a massive and unacceptable capitulation to the competition and deregulation agenda of the EU and US:
http://www.waronwant.org/news/latest-news/18306-ttip-where-the-parties-stand
#NoTTIP One of the most pernicious measures in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which empowers corporations to go to secret tribunals to attack the laws we rely on for public services, a clean environment, safe food and decent jobs etc.
A new resource has been launched for campaigning on ISDS -
www.ISDSCorporateAttacks.org – a website that outlines the basic facts/threats of ISDS; provides summaries of ISDS cases organized by issue area: health, environment, financial stability, etc.; gives stories of inspiration of governments and government officials that opposing ISDS; and includes a basic petition.
#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference - ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ - included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability’, provides conclusive evidence that contrary to official assessments, TTIP's intensification of market competition and deregulation will have negative effects on European workers including falling levels of employment, lower incomes and a reduced labour share of national wealth. A summary of the study can be read here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/14-03CapaldoTTIP.pdf
'It is not just TTIP, across the board the EU is bowing to business pressure to do away with ‘burdensome’ regulation – regulation that tends to save lives, protect consumers and ensure standards' writes Linda Kaucher on the Institute of Employment Rights blog. Yet another example of capital treating the costs of social reproduction as an 'externality - a cost for which it bears no market responsibility' as described by David Harvey in Rebel Cities:
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/eus-giant-and-secretive-deregulation-blitz
#StopTTIP John Hilary, Executive Director of War on Want, sets out the case against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - the proposed trade agreement between the European Union and the United States - in a video recording of a seminar held in Stockholm on 27 November 2014 which was convened by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykSvJpyxHDI&app=desktop
Today the Commons will debate Labour MP Clive Efford’s worthy bill to save the NHS from irreversible privatisation, which will aim to reverse the Health & Social Care Act 2012 and seek to exempt the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
However, John Hilary of War on Want points out that ‘such national legislation would not be enough to save the NHS from TTIP. If health services are included in the deal, any future UK government will be bound by its treaty obligations as an EU member state over and above unilateral declarations such as the one envisaged in the bill. Even if the UK were to take the extreme option of leaving the European Union altogether, TTIP would still enable US health corporations to sue future governments for reversing NHS privatisation, thanks to the ‘survival clauses’ that ensure free trade agreements remain in force for years after a state has ceased to be a party to them’.
Only outright rejection of TTIP will save the NHS.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/john-hilary/cameron-faces-ttip-showdown-over-nhs
#noTTIP Discussions between EU and US officials on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are ‘making progress’ according to a
BBC report. Widespread opposition to the inclusion of public services appear to be
yielding concessions although the final outcome remains to be seen as the talks are clouded in secrecy and texts of the draft treaty are not available for public scrutiny. On Saturday 11 October there will be a European day of action against TTIP with
protests organised in many places across Britain.
This weekend a very productive joint region international seminar at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester brought together 50 UNISON activists from Northern, North West and Scotland. Building on a session in Glasgow in 2013, the event heard a keynote presentation on TTIP from Polly Jones of the World Development Movement and following workshops an action plan was agreed to step up campaigning/lobbying on the proposed trade deal which will open up public services to US corporations as well as undermine democracy.
#psiglobaltradesummit The most significant decision of the 2014 Trades Union Congress was the
unanimous vote in opposition to the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The hard hitting composite called on the TUC to
oppose Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and demanded the exclusion of all public services, including education and health, public procurement, public utilities and public transport (whether in public or private ownership) from the negotiations which are largely being conducted in secret between the EU and US Government.
The Critical Thinking blog has published a useful update on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). EU denials that ‘standards on consumer protection, on the environment, on data protection and on food are not up for negotiation’ are blatant lies. So too are purported assurances that the NHS is excluded from the scope of the proposed Treaty:
http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1047-ttip-update-status-and-resistance
As opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) gains momentum in the UK and elsewhere, suddenly (and based on leaked correspondence) it has been claimed in some quarters that the treaty poses no threat to the NHS. John Hilary of War on Want, writing on the Open Democracy website, demonstrates convincingly that the opposite is true and emphasises the importance of continuing to build the campaign against TTIP:.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/john-hilary/on-ttip-and-nhs-they-are-trying-to-bamboozle-us
The Economist’s revelation that
America lost up to $272 billion in 2011 to medical fraud and abuse comes on top of research showing just how inefficient the US system is, while it looks for opportunities to export its greed for profits to the NHS.
$272 billion is “10% of medical spending and a whopping 1.7% of GDP—as if robbers had made off with the entire output of Tennessee or nearly twice the budget of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS)”, says the Economist.
#stopTTIP UNISON, War on Want, WDM, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation are holding an
event in London on 10 July to raise awareness of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which threatens to be the greatest transfer of power to transnational capital in a generation. A
new UNISON briefing explains the proposed trade deal between the US and the European Union and recommends actions to block its planned introduction in 2015:
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.
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.
