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.

Celeste Drake in the AFL-CIO Legislative Department sends us this.

When the recent APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit convened in Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov. 8-14,  the 21-member organization released the “Outline of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement” (TPP), a proposed pact that would include nine APEC members: the United States, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Peru, Chile, New Zealand and Australia.

Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this report.

Mexican independent union leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to brief, educate and express urgency to congressional leaders on the labor struggles and issues they’re currently facing in Mexico. Members of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) have remained in Mexico City’s main square (Zocalo) for the past six months, demanding justice over the administration’s war on unions. The government fired the SME’s 44,000 members in October 2009 and over the past two years, the fight over the privatization of electricity and the repression of one of Mexico’s oldest and most democratic unions has escalated. The briefing shed light on this ongoing struggle and the need for U.S. solidarity.

Two recent items on the economy struck home in the past few days. One, the United States no longer is the world’s major goods producer. Our nation has now been eclipsed by China, which ended the United States’ 110-year run as the largest goods producer.