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What I Didn't Read in the TTIP Reading Room

Katja Kipping War on Want
The secrecy surrounding the text of TTIP is revealing. Anyone who wants to enhance environmental protection, consumer protection and labor standards would have nothing to fear from transparency. Anyone who’s engaged in selling out democracy, on the other hand, is obviously going to want to avoid public scrutiny.

Secret TPP Text Unveiled: It's Worse Than We Thought, With Limits on Food Safety and Controversial Investor-State System Expanded, Rollback of Bush-Era Medicine Access and Environmental Terms

Global Trade Watch Public Citizen Global Trade Watch
TPP's fate in congress is uncertain at best; Long-awaited text reveals gaps between administration claims and actual TPP terms on key congressional, public concerns. Many in Congress said they would support the TPP only if, at a minimum, it included past reforms made to trade pact intellectual property rules affecting access to affordable medicines. But the TPP rolls back that past progress and provides pharmaceutical firms with new monopoly rights for biotech drugs.

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Refugee Crisis Demands Solidarity and Workers’ Rights for All

Rosa Crawford Touchstone
In order to sustain the tremendous humanitarian solidarity the public has shown recently towards refugees we need to connect it with solidarity in the workplace, and union campaigns to establish a floor level of rights and decent jobs for everyone.

10 Steps to Transform American Society

Jack O'Dell The Nation - April 6, 2015 edition
An outline for social transformation in the United States, inspired by South Africa's Freedom Charter. The Democracy Charter, summarized below, seeks to enlarge the public's understanding of the connectedness of these issues as a way to achieve a social transformation of American society. This is the ultimate purpose of our movement.

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There Can Be No Compromise On The Right To Srike

Ruwan Subasinghe Equal Times
Despite being a fundamental human right enshrined in international law, the right to strike is certainly not guaranteed for all workers. In fact, transport workers are one of the groups increasingly being excluded from the right to strike by way of outright bans or public service, essential services or minimum services requirements that severely limit that right.

Berkeley Free Speech Movement at 50 and Today

Lilith Claire; Leon Wofsy
Celebrations marked the 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. The FSM, along with the Civil Rights Movement, the Southern Freedom Movement, and organizations like SNCC and CORE inspired a generation. Yesterday, marking the 50th anniversary, there were celebrations and a rally - today the struggle is continuing - in Berkeley, in the U.S., and worldwide, like the Hong Kong students are showing.

Workers Who Make Your iPhone Possible Are Fighting Labor Abuse in the Philippines With Selfies and Hashtags

Karlo Mikhail Mongaya Global Voices
NXP Semiconductors is one of the world’s top 20 electronics manufacturers and supplies microchips and other parts for high-tech companies like Apple and Asus. In the Philippines, it employs over 1,600 regular workers and 1,700 contract employees. Workers organized collective actions on April 9, 17, 19, and May 1 – which are all government-declared holidays – but the management described these activities as ‘illegal strikes’ and dismissed 24 union leaders on May 5, 2014.
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