TPP headNews broke late last week in a few subscription-only, on-line, trade journals that while the next full round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are slated to take place in Malaysia in mid-July, “the negotiating group on rules of origin will meet June 23-29 in San Francisco, according to Peruvian government resolutions published on June 16 and 17 in the country’s official newspaper.”

Often occurring under the radar, intersessionals, meetings that take place between official TPP negotiations, are happening in advance of the session in Malaysia to try to keep the free trade talks on track for conclusion this fall. Last month, negotiators of the ever controversial investment chapter met in Vancouver and were challenged with a teach-in on TPP, a night-time light projection of anti-TPP messages and a protest organized by the TPPxBorder Network.

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Protest projection in Vancouver B.C. June 2013

A  meeting in San Francisco on Rules of Origin? As Arthur Stamoulis from the Citizens Trade Campaign explains,

“One of the least talked about chapters of the TPP is something called ‘Rules of Origin’. Rules of Origin are the standards that must be met in order for a product to be labeled “Made in the USA,” “Made in Brunei,” “Made in Vietnam” or wherever in order to qualify for the provisions set by the overall TPP Agreement.

There are different ways of evaluating a product’s origin, but one common way is by looking at the value of the parts that make up a finished product that’s to be exported. So, for example, if the Rule of Origin on cars is set at 50% — at least half of the parts in a finished automobile need to come from Japan in order to be labeled “Made in Japan” under the pact. If the Rule of Origin is only set at 30%, up to 70% of the parts can come from elsewhere and the car can still be labeled Japanese.”

We thought that the Rules of Origin negotiators would like to hear from former sweatshop worker Chie Abad, who once suffered under an earlier version of these Rules of Origin in the U.S. protectorate, Siapan. Working for GAP, and other U.S. retailers through the SAKO garment factory, she sewed “Made in the USA” labels into clothing, yet enjoyed none of the worker protections which U.S. workers do. In fact, she was fired for attempting to organize a union. Again, Arthur explains how the TPP takes advantage of the experience Chie had, and make it worse,

“Brand-name product companies, as well as retailers like Walmart and Target, want low Rules of Origin that enable them to source parts from wherever in the world they can get them for the cheapest price and then assemble them in low-wage TPP countries and still qualify for the zeroed-out tariff rates and quotas the TPP will provide. Often this means sourcing production wherever labor is the most exploited and environmental regulations the weakest.”

Because the government of Vietnam, which promotes it’s country as a low-cost labor alternative to China, is siding with the major transnationals in pushing for much lower Rules of Origin than most other countries within the TPP negotiations, we’d heard that the Rules of Origin negotiations are very heated. Despite photos of friendly handshakes after the recent full round in Lima, Peru, countries are far from reaching agreement, and continued disagreement over the chapter possesses the potential to sink the entire pact.

We tried for days to contact the Rules of Origin negotiators, but with no luck. We called the top hotels in the city and found that not only did most people not know where the negotiatiors were meeting, they also didn’t know what the TPP is, so we decided to take to the streets and look ourselves (and do some public education at the same time!). Here’s what happened:

Take-ActionTAKE ACTION!

The following piece was originally posted by the Citizens Trade Coalition. Please stand with the growing coalition of organizations and people on 4 continents and say: #StopTPP!

599036_10152640068720613_1588745988_nTimed with the start of the next Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating round in Peru this May, communities throughout the Pacific Rim will be holding public assemblies to discuss the potential local impacts of the TPP and steps people can take together to prevent being saddled with a disastrous corporate trade deal.

Whether one wants to reverse the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions; expand access to life-saving generic medications; support indigenous rights; protect communities’ ability to combat global warming; or sustain family farms and defend food sovereignty, there is no shortage of reasons to act together on the TPP.

One of the first steps is self-education, community dialogue and local organizing.  Please attend one of the events already in the works in your community or help organize one yourself.  Learn more (about) the Days of Action below and at this international website.

How to Organize a Community Assembly about the TPP:

Corporate media isn’t giving the TPP the attention it deserves, so it is up to us to spread the word.  Organizing your own teach-in, town hall or community forum about the TPP is a great way to educate and mobilize your community about it.

• Find a venue.  Union halls, churches, community centers and libraries are all great, free or low-cost venues.  Choose a venue that is convenient and familiar to the audience you’re seeking to reach.

• Recruit speakers.  You know your audience and what messengers will move them.  Local labor, environmental and human rights organizations may be able to provide speakers — especially on the local impacts of past trade agreements such as NAFTA and the WTO — which you can supplement by speaking yourself about the TPP using the talking points found here.  You can also reach out to the points of contact listed in this toolkit for additional speaker suggestions.

• Get cosponsors.  Ask trusted local organizations if you can list them as event cosponsors and if they will spread the word about your event to their membership.

• Spend most of your time on turnout.  At minimum, create an email about the event that you circulate to as many people as you can — asking them to forward it to their lists.  Other turnout strategies include: creating a Facebook event page for the event; leafleting other events; posting flyers at the venue and elsewhere; phonebanking your friends and other phone lists; and putting an event listing in newspapers and newsletters.  Please also email tppaction@citizenstrade.org and we may be able to help promote it.

• Invite Members of Congress.  Consider inviting Members of Congress and their staff to attend your event.  If they show up, they will learn something — and even if they don’t, they’ll at least know that constituents are talking about the TPP.

• Circulate a sign-in sheet.  Have a sign-in sheet for the event, and have a volunteer hit up everyone as they enter and/or circulate it on a clipboard as people are seated.  These are people who care about the TPP and you may want to communicate with them in the future.  Be sure to get their names, email addresses and phone numbers.

• Include an action step.  Pass out copies of this fact sheet at the event, and have people call their U.S. Representative on their cell phone before they leave with a message urging the Congress member to oppose Fast Track for the TPP.  You can also circulate a poster-sized petition that you have people sign and then recruit volunteers to help deliver it to your local Congressional office; ask people (to) raise their hands if they can help bird-dog at an upcoming Congressional town hall; or break into small groups to plan other types of action.

• Spread the word about what you learn.  Recruit someone to videotape your presenters and post the videos online.  You can share the videos with people who signed up on the sign-up sheet and encourage them to share them with friends who couldn’t attend and to post them on social media.  Also consider writing and circulating a press release about the event with short quotes about the TPP from each of your speakers.  You can send it out to both the corporate media and over listserves to help spread the word.

Materials for the Days of Action

A Sampling of TPP Events & Contacts

The main “Day of Action” is Saturday, May 11 — but you can organize an event any time.  Email us at tppaction@citizenstrade.org if you want help promoting your local event.
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California
The TPP & Obama’s Asian Pivot
May 31 – June 2
San Francisco, CA
Contact: Victor Menotti, vmenotti@ifg.org
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District of Columbia
TPP Briefing &  Strategy Discussion
Saturday, May 11 * Details TBA
Contact: Lacey Kohlmoos, lkohlmoos@citizen.org
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Illinois
TPP Teach-in (@ World Fair Trade Day Festival)
Tuesday, May 7 * 3:00pm
Daley Plaza, 50 W Washington
Chicago, IL
Contact: Josh Wise, josh@citizenstrade.org
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Minnesota
TPP Teach-in & World Fair Trade Day Celebration
Saturday, May 11 * 12:00 – 4:00pm
Regla De Oro Gallery, 2743 Lyndale Ave S
Minneapolis, MN
Contact: Josh Wise, josh@citizentrade.org
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Oregon
PDX People’s Assembly on the TPP
Saturday, May 11 * 1:00pm
First Unitarian Church, SW 12th Ave & Main St
Portland, OR
Contact: Elizabeth Swager, elizabeth@oregonfairtrade.org
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Eugene/Springfield People’s Assembly on the TPP
Monday, April 29 * 6:00pm
AFSCME Bldg, 688 Charnelton St
Eugene, OR
Contact: Elizabeth Swager, elizabeth@oregonfairtrade.org
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Jackson County People’s Assembly on the TPP
Sunday, April 28 * 4:30pm
At the Grass Shack Cafe, 205 Fern Valley Rd
Phoenix, OR (Exit 24 off I-5)
Contact: Elizabeth Swager, elizabeth@oregonfairtrade.org
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Pennsylvania
Dawson TPP Workshop
Thursday, May 16 * Details TBA
Contact: Amy Conahan, amy@citizenstrade.org
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Texas
San Antonio TPP Event
Details TBA
Contact: Bob Cash, bobcash@citizenstrade.org
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Washington
TPP People’s Assembly Seattle
Saturday, May 11 * 2:00 – 5:00pm
Central Co-op, 1900 E Madison
Seattle, WA
Contact: Kristen Beifus, kristen@washingtonfairtrade.org
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TPP People’s Assembly Olympia
Date & Time TBA
906 Columbia Street SW
Olympia, WA
Contact: Kristen Beifus, kristen@washingtonfairtrade.org
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For events in Canada and beyond, please click here.

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The following post was written by California Fair Trade Coalition Director, Tim Robertson. Take action today by calling your Representative and tell them NO on Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Korea, and Panama.

This week President Obama said he understood “the frustration” moving thousands of ordinary citizens to take to the streets of dozens of American cities. But that didn’t keep him from kicking them under the table by sending three pending NAFTA-style trade deals to Congress, despite his campaign promises to oppose them.

With a vote expected tomorrow, it’s up to activists from around the country to let their Members of Congress know that these pro-corporate deals cost jobs and marginalize the workers and the poor in all involved countries, while greasing the wheels for offshoring and further deregulating our financial services industry. The pacts, originally negotiated by President Bush, are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and we only have hours left to stop them.

Call 1-800-718-1008 to be connected to your Representative to tell them NO on Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Korea, and Panama.

When you hear the President speak of these deals, you’d think they were job a creating magic box that will restore the manufacturing sector and set us up for years of advantageous competition in Asia. Of course, when you look inside the box, you find that the U.S. International Trade Commission expects them to expand the trade deficit and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in, you guessed it, the manufacturing sector.

This shouldn’t be too big of a surprise, as we’ve learned from NAFTA that not only do these types of deals eliminate working class jobs on both sides of the border, but they outline a broad swath of extraordinary corporate rights used to subjugate workers and the planet for profit. Free Trade is just one more mechanism that the 1% use to consolidate their power. And they’re trying to expand it right under our noses. Call 1-800-718-1008 to tell your Representative to vote NO.

These FTAs are about corporations vs. people, the CEOs vs. the workers, the 1% vs. the 99%.

Under the guise of “opening up markets,” free trade agreements like these are giant corporate handouts that enable job offshoring, deregulate financial services, and empower corporations to challenge public interest laws as basic as minimum wage and environmental protections. Get this, in order to receive restitution, corporation need only prove that domestic laws “expropriated” expected profits – you can’t make this stuff up.

Call now, 1-800-718-1008.

The very nature of free trade leads to a “race to the bottom” on regulatory issues, as producers seek the cheapest environments to make goods, and in the corporate world that means the place with the worst labor laws and environmental regulation. Many countries lower such standards to attract investment and corporations are more than happy to take advantage of the cheaper environment, frequently offshoring U.S. jobs.

No where is this more apparent than in Colombia. Since 1986, over 2800 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia, often by corporate and/or state backed paramilitary groups. To this day, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world to try to organize a union, with 51 union organizers murdered in 2010 alone, more than in the rest of the world combined.

In Panama, opaque banking laws and low corporate tax rates have made the country a tax haven, home to 400,000 registered corporations for a population of just 4 million. Many of these firms are just US shell corporations hiding money for tax purposes. And we want to deregulate financial services exchanges with this country?

In the South Korea deal, American pharmaceutical companies negotiated higher prices for medicines purchased by the Korean single-payer health care, threatening the viability the system. Meanwhile, US car companies are allowed to sell cars in Korea that don’t even meet Korean emission standards. And some would suggest that these deals improve public health and are good for the environment?

I don’t think so. By definition, these deals are for the benefit of those with the resources to move capital (or jobs) from one country to another. As the Occupy Wall Street protests are highlighting, that’s only 1%. Join the 99% by fighting back on these trade deals today, because literally, tomorrow is too late.

Call your Representative TODAY at 1-800-718-1008.