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.

The AFL-CIO applauds the acceptance of the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) cases concerning Iraq and Fiji.  We believe that putting the labor laws and labor enforcement record under review in both countries will help workers in their efforts to exercise their fundamental rights—including the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. GSP is a program designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry for up to 5,000 products when imported from one of 128 designated beneficiary countries and territories.

Last year, after the June Textiles garment factory in Cambodia burned down, the 4,000 workers—some of whom had put in 18 years on the job—were offered $20 each in compensation for losing their livelihoods. Period.

That’s when the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center stepped in, working with the factory’s new owner, H&M, and through the country’s legal system, ultimately winning an unprecedented settlement that ensured they could support their families. 

The world has come to Rio de Janeiro to take stock of our planet’s environment and identify the road forward to a sustainable future. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development is referred to as Rio+20 because 20 years ago the original conference in Rio focused global attention on the environment. It spawned the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the three pillars of UN activity on climate change, biological diversity and forestry principles.

Today, the United States Trade Representative announced that Mexico will be invited to join the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP).  Although the U.S. already has extensive trade relations with Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says. Mexico’s inclusion in the TPP could have significant impacts on workers in both countries.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is taking part in the L20’s June 18-19 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico. Leaders of the 19 nations and the European Union who make up the L20 are discussing the global economic crises.

Yesterday, Trumka introduced International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde, and @AFLCIOLatino tweeted the exchange. Check it out. 

Although corporations are now investing in Burma, opportunities for economic growth must be balanced with protections for working people, Burmese political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said last week. Speaking at the International Labor Organization (ILO) Conference in Geneva, Suu Kyi was joined by U Maung Maung, general secretary of the General Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB), who spoke about the long struggle for freedom of association and the freedom to organize in Burma.

There is a massive disconnect between the austerity measures proposed by national governments worldwide and a desire to invest in jobs and growth on the part of citizens, according to a poll commissioned by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents surveyed say they prefer jobs and growth, 10 percent austerity and 24 percent express equal support for both messages.

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Iraqi unions are strongly protesting the government’s continued, systematic harassment and punishment of union workers in the oil industry who are engaging in actions protected by international labor standards and conventions, and they are calling for a new labor law that ensures worker rights for all Iraqis. ACT NOW! Join the LabourStart campaign!

Summer Olympic Games medal supplier, Rio Tinto—a union-busting global mining conglomerate with a track record of worker and environmental abuse—should be kept off the podium in London, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. In a letter sent to the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), Trumka points to Rio Tinto’s Jan. 1 lockout of 750 USW members in Alma, Quebec.