The National Farm Workers' Confederation (CNC) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada signed a historic agreement to ensure the rights of migrant agriculture workers are protected and defended in Mexico, Canada and the United States, reports UFCW Canada. 

Outside of hardcore trade policy wonks, few in the United States or Canada have ever heard of the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as TPP) or know much about it—and it's time that changed. The TPP is a trade agreement based around the current "P-4" (Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore). 

In 1960, the same number of workers were in unions in Canada and in the United States. After that, unionization in this country started a steep decline. Yet Canada’s unionization rate has held fairly steady. By 2011, 11.8 percent of U.S. workers were in unions, compared with 29.7 percent in Canada (click chart to enlarge).

So what happened here?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, sounds like a friendly little cooperative endeavor, doesn't it?  Or maybe a new kind of bathroom tissue?   Well, it's neither of those things.  It's a proposed "free trade agreement," like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), but with 11 countries instead of three. The negotiations, held at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, brought out almost 200 union members along with allies from Occupy San Diego, La Fuerza Unida, Friends of the Earth and other groups on Monday to express concern about the possible ramifications to their jobs, their families and the American economy.  Trade negotiators from the U.S. were at the Hilton all week working on the negotiations with representatives from Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.  Mexico and Canada were recently added to the TPP—but have not yet participated in the talks.