Maritime workers build “trans–Pacific opposition” to TPPA free trade deal

The Mar­itime Union says the TPPA (Trans Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment) is attract­ing mas­sive “Trans Pacif­ic” oppo­si­tion not just in New Zealand.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the Union is play­ing an active role in the cam­paign against the TPPA and has linked up to North Amer­i­can mar­itime work­ers fight­ing against the free trade deal.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Union is sup­port­ing protest actions in Auck­land this week, attend­ed yes­ter­days ral­ly in Welling­ton, and has already tak­en part in a ral­ly on the US/Canadian bor­der http://tppxborder.org/

Mr Fleet­wood spoke via audio link to 1 Decem­ber 2012 “Action and Peo­ple’s Sum­mit” at the Peace Arch on the US/Canadian bor­der that brought togeth­er labor and trade advo­cates from the US, Cana­da and Mex­i­co.

“Our good friends in the Inter­na­tion­al Long­shore and Ware­house Union (ILWU) and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) on the west coast of North Amer­i­ca were part of this event and invit­ed us to show some work­ing class glob­al­i­sa­tion in action.”

Mr Fleet­wood said these actions showed Prime Min­is­ter John Key’s state­ment this week that those opposed to free trade deals “live in a world that doesn’t want to see New Zealand inter­sect­ing glob­al­ly with the rest of the world” was non­sen­si­cal.

He says the Mar­itime Union held a con­fer­ence last month in Welling­ton which had del­e­gates attend­ing from Aus­tralia, USA, Japan, Cana­da and the UK – all of whom we very aware of the dan­gers of free trade deals like the TPPA.

Mr Fleet­wood says that inter­na­tion­al del­e­gates at the MUNZ Con­fer­ence spoke on their strong oppo­si­tion to the TPPA.

“The fun­ny thing is that the informed work­ing class all around the world are oppos­ing free trade deals like this and we are part of this move­ment of glob­alised sol­i­dar­i­ty – so it is actu­al­ly Mr Key who is wrong on this mat­ter.”

Mr Fleet­wood says mar­itime work­ers work in the world’s first glob­alised indus­try.

He says mar­itime and trans­port unions around the world are mobil­is­ing against secre­tive, unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic and anti-work­er free trade deals.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Union is very con­cerned about how secure jobs and health and safe­ty may be under­mined by free trade deals, which were part of a wider push to dereg­u­late economies and hand con­trol to cor­po­rate inter­ests.

Mr Fleet­wood says that MUNZ has been active­ly cam­paign­ing against free trade and for fair trade since the Union was formed in 2003.