TiSA: threat to public services

Readers of Tribune will undoubtedly be aware of the transatlantic free trade agreement between the EU and the USA, known as TTIP. You may have heard about a similar agreement (which is all but signed off) called CETA, the free trade deal between Canada and the EU. And what about the TPP — the free trade deal being negotiated by the USA and a host of ‘Pacific Rim’ countries?

 
All these free trade agreements are being opposed by the majority of trade unions in the UK, Europe, Canada and the USA as they will severely curtail workers’ rights in the countries affected; will lead to compulsory privatisation of public services and give corporations and multinational companies more power than ever before – even over sovereign governments.

 
But have you heard of TiSA – The Trade in Services Agreement being negotiated by 22 countries – with twelve of the G20 nations having a seat at the table, along with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa? If you have not heard of TiSA it is not surprising.

 
TiSA has been around since 2013 and although an outline text has been in discussion for over a year it has remained secret, with the documents due to remain classified for five years. It is only recently that details of the texts of the agreement have come to the surface, courtesy of WikiLeaks.

 
Like TTIP, CETA, and TPP, the TiSA deal will ‘turbo-charge’ global trade – this time in ‘services’, which includes air and maritime transport; parcel delivery; e-commerce; telecommunications; accounting; engineering; consulting; health care; private education; and financial services – around 80 per cent of the US economy and 68 per cent of the EU labour force with trade in services providing a surplus of €173.2 billion for the EU in 2013.

 
As with TTIP, CETA and TPP, the leaked TiSA documents show that that it would restrict the ability of sovereign governments to manage their own legislation. This would be done through a ‘regulatory cap’ limiting regulation of services at all levels from national to local government.

 
Using ‘standstill’ clauses, TiSA will be able to stop new laws being passed, and prevent new professional licensing, new or amended qualifications or technical standards being enacted. And like TTIP, it has a ‘ratchet’ clause, which would make decisions made under TiSA irreversible – once a decision is made, there is no going back.

 
Although experts say the TiSA text is almost incomprehensible unless you are a trade lawyer, the leaks suggest that foreign corporations must receive the same ‘national treatment’ as domestic companies; that regulations cannot be ‘more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service’ and no restrictions can be placed on foreign investment.

 
This would allow corporations to monopolise entire sectors such as telecoms and communications. Public services, including telephone and postal services, would be broken up or forced into competition with foreign service providers.

 
Win-win for banks

 
The United States and EU have said that that these regulations ‘need not be permanent’, but they also ‘noted the important complementary role of the private sector in these areas to improve the availability and diversity of services’.

 
Corporations would also be able to use secret courts similar to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process in TTIP, TPP and CETA ,where they can demand compensation equal to ‘expected future profits’ lost through violations of the ‘regulatory cap’.

 
Experts have warned that if TiSA comes into force, governments would also be helpless to stop ‘financial innovation’ – including the type of irresponsible and criminal behaviour which brought about the collapse of the banks in the US and the EU in 2007 and 2008.

 
Switzerland, that bastion of transparency, has proposed that TiSA must allow ‘any new financial service’ to enter their market. Regulations designed to protect investors and savers are ‘allowed’, but they ‘must not act contrary to TiSA rules’ – a win-win situation for the banks!

 
Financial services suppliers will also be able to use individual client data regardless of national privacy laws.

 
And what of employment protections and workers’ rights? Well, although there is still a lack of clarity, it appears that TiSA would classify migrant workers as ‘independent service suppliers’.

 
This would apply not just to professionals such as architects, vets, engineers, accountants, designers and IT consultants, but to other migrant workers such as nurses and care workers, who would be classed as ‘service suppliers’ with no employer-employee relationship.

 
‘Fast track’

 
TiSA will put corporations before governments on every occasion, and as with TPP and TTIP, the US president will have ‘fast track’ authority to push TiSA through the US legislature without line-by-line scrutiny.

 
Judith Kirton, Darling MEP, who is the spokesperson for the 191-strong Socialist and Democrats group in the European Parliament on TiSA said:

 
“I have clearly signalled that Socialist MEPs will not agree to trade away our public services, our privacy or our workers’ rights. We now have the opportunity to make these demands the whole Parliament’s demands. In the coming months, I will be engaging with my fellow MEPs from other countries and political parties in full transparency to try to convince them of the relevance of our concerns.”

 
Meanwhile, the negotiations to conclude the Trans Pacific deal between the USA and the Pacific Rim countries ran into difficulties when trade ministers failed to break deadlocks on key issues at a recent meeting in Hawaii. There were disagreements over market access to products such as dairy and sugar and a dispute over intellectual property rules for new generations of pharmaceuticals.

 
This may prove a setback for President Obama who has expressed a determination to get the TPP and TTIP deals through before he leaves office having gained authority to ‘fast track’ these deals through the US legislature – with no amendments or line by line debate.

 
Most Republican candidates (minus Donald Trump) support Obama’s wish to get these deals done. He faces significant opposition from Democrats including Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner who has distanced herself from the TPP deal. But unions recall the fact that it was her ex-President husband Bill Clinton who drove through the North American free trade deal NAFTA between the US, Canada and Mexico — which has lost the US over 700,000 manufacturing jobs.

• This article first appeared on Tribune on September 15.