Rethinking Trade with Lori Wallach

On August 19th, workers at the massive General Motors plant in Silao, Mexico participated in an historic vote that ousted the corrupt and undemocratic protection union that had long controlled labor relations there. The effort to win such a vote was made possible by the labor rules and Rapid Response enforcement mechanism of the USMCA trade deal.

In this Labor Day special, we sit down with Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Research Director Daniel Rangel and long-time labor organizer Jeff Hermanson, who has been supporting the General Motors campaign through the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center. We discuss the situation at Silao, its significance in the context of trade policy and what it says about the prospect for workers to utilize the USMCA to fight for labor rights in North America.

Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod.

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove.

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Getting the world vaccinated and ending the pandemic is a political choice: World leaders have the medical, technical and financial capacity. To produce enough vaccines involves three clear steps: getting intellectual property monopoly barriers out of the way through a temporary WTO TRIPS waiver, technology transfer through sharing the recipes, and funding global production so the world is not reliant on a few monopoly sources.

With this year’s United Nations General Assembly now underway and President Biden’s upcoming COVID Summit around the corner, the U.S. has a powerful opportunity to end the pandemic. Unfortunately, the targets for Biden’s COVID summit exclude making a final deal on the TRIPS waiver or any others steps to share vaccine recipes with the world so more shots can be produced.

To discuss all of this, we are joined by longtime HIV and social justice activist Matthew Rose, who leads U.S. policy and advocacy work at Health GAP and has been deeply involved in the fight for the TRIPS waiver.

Click here to sign the petition.

Click here to learn more about Health GAP.

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Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod.

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove.

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Right now, Apple and Google are lobbying the U.S. government to attack South Korean anti-monopoly policies. They claim that a recently passed Korean law requiring app stores to allow consumers to use diverse payment systems violates the US-Korea trade deal. Big Tech corporations want to hijack trade pacts to outlaw as a “barrier to trade” anti-trust, labor, environmental or consumer protections that could cut into their profits.

On today’s show, we discuss this case and Big Tech’s current attempts to quietly thwart domestic digital governance and pro-competition policymaking now underway in the U.S. Congress, in various U.S. agencies and in countries around the world by misbranding such policies as “barriers to digital trade.”

Learn more: www.tradewatch.org

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Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod.

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove.

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Will the WTO get out of the way of global production of COVID-19 vaccines and meds so we can end this pandemic? Whether Big Pharma or humankind will win is the biggest question as the WTO’s major biennial ministerial meeting starts the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. But Big Tech also has a play...

More than 120 countries support waiving some of the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules that are limiting production of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests. But the European Union, UK and Switzerland are blocking. A waiver wont happen without more leadership from the Biden administration.

With all this as a backdrop, Big Tech corporations are also vying for influence at MC12, urging the body to push so-called “digital trade” proposal that would close domestic policy space on issues of great importance, including gig economy worker protections, discrimination and algorithm transparency, competition policy and anti-trust, corporate liability, and consumer privacy. Big Tech wants the WTO to formalize what have beeb rump talks in violation of its own rules.

The stakes could not be higher for the WTO or for the world: Failure to enact a waiver will prolong the pandemic, leading to more death, illness, economic hardship, and social and political disruption. And rushing through a “Trojan Horse” set of “digital trade” rules will only further erode democracy worldwide.

LINKS:

MC12 Global Call to Action

3 Million TRIPS Petitions Delivered to President Biden

Senators Sanders, Warren, Baldwin and Brown call on Biden to Push for TRIPS Waiver at MC12

Reuters: Activists Urge Biden to Push for Intellectual Property Waiver for COVID-19 Vaccines

Big Tech’s “Digital Trade” Trojan Horse Strategy

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Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod.

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove.

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

We're thrilled to present our latest episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast. Lori is joined by Larry Cohen, former President of the Communication Workers of America, for a guided tour of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike.

(Spoiler alert: There’s a lot more about this strike and how it could impact all of us than most of us know!)

Larry brings his decades of experience building worker power and broad knowledge of labor history to discuss:

· The big issues not gaining headlines, like how the strike could broadly shape U.S. workers’ fate in the future green economy,

· The role this strike plays in the arc of U.S. workers struggles,

· Where we need to go from here, including what we need to push Congress to do.

Larry’s knowledge and experience makes this conversation a must-listen for anyone interested in a fair economy and social justice.