- Conference
- Date
- June 16, 2017
- Decision
Conference notes the publication of the Governments Building our Industrial Strategy Green Paper in January 2017; believes that following a decade of underperformance and seven years of Conservative Government it is about time the Tories got round to making sure that every part of the UK benefits from good quality jobs, modern infrastructure and the economic growth which supports improvements in living standards.
Conference is concerned, however, that the lack of clarity around the Government’s plans for the UK’s exit from the European Union, the election of President Trump in the United States of America – who has at times championed protectionism – and the continued policy of austerity in the UK could undermine the Government’s welcome u-turn towards an interventionist economic policy. Conference is also concerned that the Green Paper fails to mention partnership working with trade unions and runs contrary to the Prime Ministers threat to change the UK into an offshore tax haven should the EU fail to grant the UK a good deal regarding access to the single market.
Recent campaigns by UNISON and the ETUC on trade agreements such as Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) have highlighted to members how recently negotiated international trade agreements are now mostly about “regulatory barriers” to trade – not tariffs. TTIP negations have currently stalled and the Trump administration’s decision to walk away from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) mean that TTIP is very unlikely to be agreed, if at all, by the time the UK has left the European Union. However, Conference is extremely worried about reports that the UK Government may seek a fast-track trade deal with the US. Private healthcare companies in the US have an ‘offensive interest’ in opening up the NHS to further privatisation and multinational pharmaceutical companies want to undermine NHS pricing controls. UNISON also knows that such a move would only lower standards in the UK by abolishing the regulatory controls that exist to protect workers and consumers. UNISON members also known that pay, pensions and other terms and conditions may also be affected in the “race to the bottom”, whilst the further privatisation of services through such deals, which history has shown to penalise women workers in particular, may also adversely impact on existing standards.
Conference is also alarmed that international trade deals increasingly include investment protection chapters and investor state dispute settlements. Conference believes that such mechanisms are a direct threat to democratic decision making restricting governments from legislating in the public interest, how they run public services and regulate utilities. These provisions give foreign companies a right to apply to private arbitration tribunals for compensation whenever a government passes a law which they deem to be a form of indirect expropriation of their assets, bypassing national courts and undermining democracy. The tribunal process only benefits those companies that use it and the high paid corporate lawyers that service it whilst, at the same time, threatening the willingness of governments to pass public health, environmental protection or human rights legislation.
UNISON believes that all trade deals and any new Trade Bill regarding future international trade deals must be carefully negotiated, have broad public consultation and be democratically voted on in the UK Parliament and by the devolved nations parliaments and assemblies.
Conference therefore calls on the National Executive Council to:
- Campaign to ensure there is both full Parliamentary and full public consultation on all future trade deals;
- Work with other trade unions and external campaigning groups, including those based in other countries, to ensure that future trade agreements between the UK and other countries must include enforceable labour provisions based on the ILO core conventions, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the ILO Decent Work Agenda;
- Work with Parliamentarians to ensure that future trade deals explicitly exclude public services, including exclusion from investment chapters and their private tribunals, not just market access and national treatment;
- Continue to play a leading role, both in the UK and internationally, in shaping an alternative trade agenda that respects international labour standards and quality public services, protection of the environment and the right of countries in the Global South and elsewhere to set their own priorities for economic development;
- Lobby MPs, MEPs and Ministers to highlight the threats posed by new trade deals and to oppose their implementation when they undermine workers rights.
National Executive Council
62.1
Add at end of penultimate paragraph (ending.. “devolved nations parliaments and assemblies.”):
“Conference believes that Theresa May’s haste in offering a State Visit to Donald Trump is part of an agenda to promote Trade Deals which will not protect workers’ rights or public services.”
Add new point 6):
“6) Support the demand that the offer of a State Visit to Donald Trump is withdrawn. Should Trump’s State Visit go ahead support appropriate protests and demonstrations and seek to ensure that the demands on global fair trade set out in this motion form part of the agenda of those protests.”
Tower Hamlets UNISON (M)
NEC POLICY: SUPPORT