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Tisa:The Trade in Services Agreement and How It Threatens

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Tisa:The Trade in Services Agreement and How It Threatens The trouble with The Trade in Services Agreement and how it threatens transport TiSA: workers’ rights By Professor Jane Kelsey, Dr Jane Kelsey is a Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The report was peer reviewed by Professor Robert Faculty of Law, the University Stumberg from the Harrison Institute for Public Law, Georgetown of Auckland, New Zealand University Law Center, Washington DC, USA. Commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung The trouble with The Trade in Services Agreement and how it threatens transport TiSA: workers’ rights By Professor Jane Kelsey, Dr Jane Kelsey is a Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The report was peer reviewed by Professor Robert Faculty of Law, the University Stumberg from the Harrison Institute for Public Law, Georgetown of Auckland, New Zealand University Law Center, Washington DC, USA. Commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung EXECUTIVE SUMMARY barriers, including protections for workers – or at least freeze them at their current level, and promise never to adopt new regulations that might restrict existing and new services or technologies (think of drones, robots and driverless vehicles). TiSA’s transparency annex would give other TiSA governments and corporations rights to lobby against proposed regulations that affect their interests. 1. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is a global trade union federation. The rules that govern the global services market shape TISA AND THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION the daily lives of its affiliated unions and their members. The Trade in 6. The radical impact of new technologies has been called the ‘fourth industrial Services Agreement (TiSA) has the potential to dramatically change that revolution’. ‘Free trade in services’ through TiSA would remove restrictions world. The negotiations are currently paralysed. This is the time for the ITF on its expansion. That means continuous reorganisation and disruption, and transport workers everywhere to make their voices heard. as corporations respond to new technologies, shifts in market, the cost of labour and automation. Corporate wealth is bound to strengthen the power TISA: CORPORATE RULES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY of those who control global supply chains and digital technologies. Their 2. Since 2013, TiSA has been negotiated in secret by a club of 23 parties who actual operations will run through layers of competitive contractors who call themselves The Really Good Friends of Services: Australia; Canada; employ a fragmented, vulnerable, de-unionised and exploited international Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; the European Union; Hong Kong; Iceland; Israel; workforce. Japan; Lichtenstein; Mauritius; Mexico; New Zealand; Norway; Pakistan; 7. Continuous restructuring and chronic instability will create large scale Panama; Peru; South Korea; Switzerland; Taiwan, China; Turkey and the USA. unemployment and social disruption. Already digital technologies are 3. They are on a mission to create a ‘21st century’ agreement that serves the transforming what workers do, where they are located, how they are interests of the world’s most powerful corporations for decades to come. employed, by whom and on what terms, and their ability to organise and Governments are agreeing to put handcuffs on their right to regulate bargain collectively (or bargain at all). Workers are pitted against workers services and technologies, including those that don’t yet exist. Uruguay in a battle for survival that is not of their making. and Paraguay quit this club after strong union-led campaigns demanded 8. Transport workers already face these challenges every day. The pace of the right to decide their own futures. change is unpredictable. Air and maritime cargo transport and ground 4. The corporate cheerleaders, called Team TiSA, are dominated by tech haulage will remain essential to move products around, but they will play giants like Microsoft, IBM and Google, global logistics and transport different roles as production and supply chains, and their ownership, operators like DHL, Fedex, and UPS, and finance moguls like Citigroup are reorganised. ‘Bricks and mortar’ type production and warehousing and AIG. They have privileged access to negotiators. Legislators, unions operations may become unrecognisable. The future of bricks and mortar and social movements from TiSA countries are shut out. retailing is least certain. Traditional firms like DHL and Fedex could struggle 5. Team TiSA want global rules that allow them to run e-commerce and to survive as operators such as Amazon or AliBaba change how the global global supply chains seamlessly across the world using digital platforms economy operates. and new technologies. TiSA would require governments to remove national 9. TiSA will not cause this new revolution. It will intensify the current pace of and local government laws and practices that the corporations see as change, competition and unpredictability, and governments won’t be able to address many of the problems that it creates. The actual agreement THE ITF’S TRANSPORT AND DELIVERY SECTORS involves a core text, based on an existing World Trade Organization 10. As well as TiSA’s general impacts on national and global economies, some agreement known as the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) annexes specifically target the post and courier, maritime, air and road and around 18 annexes that cover specific sectors such as maritime, air transport sectors. Their goals reflect the demands of the big industry and road transport, delivery services, labour mobility, financial services, lobbies: and e-commerce. A country’s obligations can be enforced by other TiSA • The air transport annex aims to extend the rights of foreign firms to countries (not by their corporations) through offshore tribunals where operate ground handling, airport operations and speciality air services the judges are trade experts. If the rules are breached, a country can face on the same terms as local firms. serious penalties against its trade in goods, agriculture or services. • The maritime services annex predictably targets maritime cabotage (the system of reserving a nation’s domestic maritime commerce for its own citizens to ensure the retention of skilled workers and decent WHAT TISA AIMS TO DO jobs for the future of the industry) and other services that are closed to foreign firms, and guarantee access for multimodal operators to the enable the global reorganisation of capital through new technologies • entire transport infrastructure on ‘reasonable’ and non-discriminatory and digital platforms; terms. • support globally integrated logistics and supply chains; • The delivery services annex aims to break down postal monopolies, • promote competition and contractualisation in providing services; minimise the public service obligation, and lock in existing and future • remove barriers to cross-border services and offshoring; postal liberalisation and deregulation, while the e-commerce annex • prohibit policies and strategies that support the domestic economy allows the ‘Big Four’ global express delivery companies (DHL, Fedex, and jobs; TNT, UPS) to build economies of scale that reinforce their dominance of global supply chains. • remove employment-related obligations on foreign investors; • The annexes on labour mobility and road and freight transport • ensure corporate élites have a right to enter and work in other TiSA encourage governments to guarantee temporary entry for foreign countries; contract workers to deliver services under their home country terms • allow foreign firms to use foreign contract workers to deliver services of employment, which would deepen problems of social dumping. in a TiSA country; 11. TiSA’s corporate-driven rules on delivery and air and maritime transport • enable employers to bypass collective agreements and de-unionise services also threaten the role of specialist international organisations like the workforce; the IMO (International Maritime Organization), ICAO (International Civil • require pro-business approaches to licensing, qualifications and Aviation Organization), UPU (Universal Postal Union) and ILO (International technical standards, including those that directly affect labour; and Labour Organization). These are places where the ITF and other unions • weaken the standard-setting role of specialist international bodies, work to protect workers’ rights and interests and balance economic and especially in transportation. social, consumer and security concerns. TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1. PART 4. 5.10 Impacts on air transport The Annex on International Road TISA – A GAME-CHANGER MARITIME TRANSPORT SECTOR 40 workers and unions 68 Freight Transport 89 FOR THE ITF 15 4.1 A snapshot 40 7.8 Workers in the Global South 91 1.1 Empowering corporations 15 4.2 Objectives in a nutshell 41 7.9 Professionals 92 1.2 Freedom for capital 16 4.3 The corporate lobbies 42 PART 6. 7.10 Workers’ rights 92 1.3 Disempowering workers 16 4.4 The historical context 42 POST AND EXPRESS DELIVERY 69 7.11 Challenging the TiSA project 93 1.4 A snapshot of TiSA 17 4.5 TiSA’s coverage of maritime transport 44 6.1 A snapshot 69 1.5 How TiSA works for corporations 18 4.6 Access to the maritime transport market 44 6.2 Objectives in a nutshell 70 1.6 The structure of this report 19 4.7 Non-discrimination and cabotage 45 6.3 Corporate demands 71 APPENDICES 96 4.8 Scheduling 46 6.4
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