The following is an excerpt from the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ). 

According to the Department of Labor’s August 2 jobs report, 12 million U.S. workers remain unemployed. In manufacturing and construction alone, 1.8 million people were out of work. Given that past trade agreements have had a deep and lasting impact on U.S. jobs, the officials negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) must focus on policies that create jobs, rather than destroy them.

In order to produce an agreement that will create more jobs than it costs in the United States and Europe, TTIP negotiators must be willing to replace past trade models based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with models built on transparency, democracy, fairness, strong labor standards and social and environmental safeguards. Negotiators should also condition each country’s participation on its adoption, implementation and effective enforcement of fundamental human rights reflected by International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions and jurisprudence. The model must also include eliminating the forced transfer of technology and production in return for market access, often referred to as offsets or offset-like transactions, and eliminating investor-to-state dispute mechanisms. Negotiators must refrain from adopting any provision that would encourage austerity measures and other policies that result in job losses. And they need to adopt effective measures to prevent currency manipulation.

Read the rest of  Labor Rights, Manufacturing and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership .