Labor Standards in the TPP

The United States Trade Representative has said the Trans Pacific Partnership has “the strongest protections for workers of any trade agreement in history”. The TPP states that all 12 nations recognize the laws regarding the International Labor Organization’s essential labor practices and rights and implement them.  The TPP relies on the political drive of the United States to enforce the labor standards they set out. In addition, the TPP requires that all nations have laws governing minimum wages, scheduled work hours, and work-related safety and health to all employees. States cannot waive these laws especially in places where there is a higher risk of labor complications.  The TPP parties must settle labor disagreements the same way they would settle commercial arguments, which includes the likelihood of trade agreements as an answer. However, TPP does not care about what the extent of those laws are, just as long that there is something in place. This means that the minimum wage, scheduled work hours, and work-related safety and health obligations of the TPP are not meaningful. So, a maximum of 100 work hours and a minimum wage of $1 a day would both satisfy the TPP requirements.  Labor standards depend on each country and how they interpret those requirements. In free trade agreements, only a government can solve a dispute settlement against another government for not following FTA labor protections. Being that the TPP has a free trade agreement, it restricts dispute settlements of work issues to party states’ governments. Only the United States government can raise a labor disagreement against another party state, not any individual or organization within the U.S. This leads one to believe that perhaps the TPP does not take its labor requirements as seriously as they should.

Source: (Dong, 2016)

https://onlabor.org/enforcing-labor-standards-under-the-trans-pacific-partnership/