ISDS Case Map
labour | workers' rights
If the Canadian federal government proceeds with a free trade agreement with Korea as promised, the impact on Canadian communities would be disastrous, according to a new study released by the CAW on October 23.
The Canadian Auto Workers has called on the three opposition parties in Ottawa to vote down any Canada-Korea free trade agreement in order to save Canadian jobs. CAW's internal analysis predicts the trade deal would cost over 33,000 jobs.
Masked gunmen dumped a Guatemalan banana picker's bullet-ridden corpse yards from fields of fruit bound for the United States, a grim reminder of the risks of organizing labor in the Central American country.
"When President Bush says the economy benefits from trade deals, he
must mean the part of the economy he cares about -- the top one percent,"
Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said. "It's not competition we're afraid of, but the global
capitalists who rig the system against the American worker."
Feet firmly planted, Juan Castillo, coordinator of Uruguay's PIT-CNT central union plugged his nose at the visit of US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez here Monday.
"A free trade deal with Korea will take a bad situation and make it worse...The government should cancel these talks," said Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove.
The jobs of at least 77,000 as well as tens of thousands of iron and steel workers whose livelihoods depend, directly or indirectly, on the automotive industry are imperiled as the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) threatens to destroy the country's automotive industry, said Frank Mero, national president of the Philippine Metalworkers' Alliance and of the Automotive Industry Workers' Alliance.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of workers' rights being routinely abused, DR-CAFTA offers no solution.
Filipino health workers hoping to work in Japan or migrate to that country may find it more difficult if the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) is approved, said a national organization of health professionals.
Mr. Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, said the leadership of organised labour had discussed the main issues of the EPA negotiations and concluded that the current efforts to negotiate a free and fair trade agreement between the world's single most powerful economic bloc and weaker economies was impossible.
