In a time when the globalized economy means that steelworkers in Bahia, Brazil, work for the same multinational as their counterparts in Beaumont, Texas, the AFL-CIO is ramping up efforts to help workers organize around the world and fight against bad international trade deals that strip workers of their rights and give corporations unchecked power. Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles passed two resolutions directly dealing with these important issues.

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 Aug. 22, the government of Brunei will kick off the 19th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a massive trade and investment pact among 12 Asia-Pacific countries, including all of North America, Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam. The latest country to accede is Japan.

Corporations are trying to hijack a trade agreement that is currently being negotiated in secret. It's called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and if they're successful, they'll have a say in everything from your rights at work to the prices of your prescriptions and safety of your child’s toys. Working families around the world are going to be affected by the outcome of this legislation.

Take action on the TPP here. 

The Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Robert Scott has issued a report on the early results of the U.S.-Korea trade agreement (often called KORUS).  It’s not good for U.S. workers, who have already lost about 40,000 jobs because of the increasing trade deficit with Korea. 

We need to think differently about trade.

First, let me say that I am 100% in favor of trade. Trade is when we do what we do best, they do what they do best and we trade. Trade, done right, will raise living standards.

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. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council called for a “high-wage” economic strategy, a new trade model and universal voter registration coupled with vigorous protection of the right to vote at its February meeting in Orlando, Fla., today. The Executive Council also addressed gender equality and commemorated the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington .

In its statement on economic strategy, the council says, “There is something fundamentally wrong with the U.S. economy,” that has resulted in “the stagnation of wages and incomes that has crippled the American middle class for more than a generation.”

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).