In its new briefing paper, A Cautionary Tale: The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality in Europe, Oxfam compares Europe’s current austerity measures to the failed “structural adjustment” programs imposed on developing countries by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s. The conclusion?  “Europe is facing a lost decade. An additional 15 [million] to 25 million people across Europe could face the prospect of living in poverty by 2025 if austerity measures continue,” says the report.

Activists are turning up the volume on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and making sure that more of America’s working families learn about this trade and globalization deal being negotiated by 12 countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States). The deal, which is shaping up to be a “supersize” NAFTA, could affect everything from wages and job creation, to food safety, prescription drug costs, clean air and water, worker bargaining power and even the ability of states to prefer American-made products. 

On July 15, the Bangladesh Parliament passed legislation amending the Bangladesh Labor Law of 2006. In doing so, the Parliament changed 87 sections of the existing law. Many of those changes were not substantive and fail to address the concerns raised by workers' rights advocates. In our view, the changes made by the Bangladesh government did not bring the country’s labor law into compliance with ILO fundamental rights, conventions and standards. Indeed, unions and workers' rights advocates worked to fix the portions of the proposed law that actually weaken, rather than strengthen, protections for workers.

After the catastrophic Rana Plaza garment factory building collapse that resulted in 1,129 dead and 1,500 injured Bangladeshi workers, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), held a hearing to investigate “Labor Issues in Bangladesh.” I testified for the AFL-CIO at the hearing.

This morning, acting Secretary of Labor Seth D. Harris and acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis announced that the United States had finally requested consultations with the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain under the Labor Chapter of the United States–Bahrain Free Trade Agreement. We're pleased the U.S. government is moving ahead with consultations even though we had hoped this announcement would have been issued months ago.  Unfortunately, the campaign to dismantle the Bahraini labor movement has been moving much faster than the U.S. response.

Severe budget cuts (for example, the kind required by the sequester), also known as “austerity” policies—expected to be implemented in 119 countries across the globe in 2013—are the wrong solution to the world’s economic crisis, concludes a new paper released by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and the South Centre.

Last week, the United States and Iraq announced a bilateral United States-Iraq Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), signed in 2005, would likely to enter into force later this year. TIFAs provide a formal bilateral mechanism for countries to discuss trade- and investment-related issues.

The U.S. government is currently working with 10 other countries to negotiate the biggest trade and investment agreement (also known as a “free trade agreement” or FTA) in history. It is called the TPP, or Trans-Pacific Partnership. Not only will it be bigger than NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement)­—it’s actually NAFTA plus eight other countries.

“Free trade agreements.” Many union members and other workers might tell you that so-called FTAs (of which NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement—­is the most well-known) haven’t been effective at creating jobs or raising standards of living—and they’d be right. But what are these FTAs, really? 

Well, first of all, “free trade agreements” are only somewhat about trade and have very little to do with making it “free.” At least if we are talking about U.S.-style trade agreements since 1993, when NAFTA went into effect. 

In his 2013 State of the Union Address (SOTU), President Obama announced that the U.S. would soon begin talks on a “Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”—in other words, the U.S. will begin negotiating a “free trade agreement” (FTA) with the European Union (EU).