Concept

Note

PEOPLE OVER PROFIT
Peoples Movement against FTAs and Corporate Plunder

Background
The global economy remains mired in a protracted crisis that reveals a fundamental breakdown of the
global capitalist system. Mainstream economic and financial analysts admit that the global financial
crisis that erupted in 2008 has not really ended. Indeed, according to Goldman Sachs, it has entered its
third phase with stalling growth in China and other so-called emerging economies, declining
commodities prices and mounting global deflationary pressures. To overcome the protracted crisis of
profitability, global corporate elites are now mounting a renewed global economic offensive, using all
the multilateral, regional and bilateral mechanisms at their disposal.
With the lackluster performance of the WTO negotiations in the past years, monopoly capital has
renewed its focus on bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) that aim to push contentious
issues that would otherwise not be possible to advance within the context of a multilateral trade regime
such as the WTO.

New generation trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP), Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),
and European Union Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), are the principal means by which monopoly
capitalists are currently setting the rules of global trade. These are: dismantling what remains of labour
protections and other measures for the protection of social welfare and the environment; privatizing and
commercializing sectors of the economy still under public or common ownership; deepening the
compradorization and denationalization of underdeveloped economies; and securing greater protections for
monopoly capitalist property and profits.

For instance, many of these so-called 21st century Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) include investor-state dispute
settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that allow corporations to sue a state if a new regulation say, related to labor
rights, public health or environmental protection hampers their expected profits or investment potentials.
Governments will have to conduct regulatory impact assessments, justifying the need for a regulation to the
satisfaction of companies from TPP countries before such a measure is adopted. They require member states to
strengthen patent systems for seed monopoly firms and expand the market for privatised genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) and hybrids, while restricting the use of traditional seeds and knowledge. Under the TPP,
signatory states are obliged to extend 20 year drug patent protection by up to eight more years and likewise
extends major media corporations monopoly copyright terms for artistic works.

By strengthening transnational corporate (TNC) power over national regulatory regimes, these new FTAs
consolidate monopoly capitalist control not just over international trade and investments but also over
domestic economies.
Corporate grabs are being carried out by Transnational Corporations (TNCs) on a global scale to further
accumulate and concentrate profit and power into the hands of the monopoly capitalist class. TNCs
plunder societies natural and human resources, markets, public goods and infrastructures, traditional
knowledge and genetic material, thereby dispossessing the people and transferring wealth to the 1%.

This accumulation by dispossession by monopoly capitalists is executed in a myriad of ways. Having

captured different multilateral institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO, their TNCs have managed
to subvert underdeveloped countries economies, dismantle the public interest controls on international
trade and investment, and increase their dependency to foreign goods and capital. Because of poor
countries governments desire to entice investments, regulatory codes and rules that have been put in
place to protect the economy, environment and people have been significantly lowered, if not totally
eliminated, causing a race to the bottom. For workers, this means lowering of wages, flexibilization of
labor, and repression of trade unions. For the general population, this means increased vulnerability to
the crisis as the policies of austerity and privatization transform strategic and key sectors into lucrative
for-profit enterprises owned and controlled by TNCs. The deregulation of environmental protection
measures and standards, meanwhile, leads to pillage and destruction of natural resources, forfeiting
countries prospects for future development and growth.
As the state of public services and infrastructure deteriorate due to the deliberate policy of
governments to cut down on public expenditure, TNCs take the opportunity to push their privatization
agenda. Public-private partnerships have become convenient cover for the corporate grab of water,
with governments contracting out water supply and sanitation operations to water multinationals. Land
grabs are also among the most common examples of TNC grabs. Mining TNCs are notorious for
encroaching on indigenous peoples territories to plunder the abundant mineral resources in these lands.
Robbing workers of the fruits of their labor is the most ubiquitous form of corporate grabbing. There is
the unpaid labor time of workers who produce profits for the capitalist class -- which is invisible and
legal under capitalist rule. But there is also widespread wage theft that is illegal even under the
existing legal order.
The People Over Profit Campaign Network
People Over Profit is a campaign network that unites peoples movements and NGOs across the globe to
stop free trade agreements (FTAs) and corporate plunder. This campaign network aims to conduct and
support mass struggles against neoliberal free trade agreements, transnational corporations, as well as
state policies that enable corporate grabs.
The specific objectives of the campaign are to:
1. Expose and oppose the negative impacts of FTAs and TNCs on the jobs, livelihoods, and rights of
the working people.
2. Expose and oppose the role of states in enabling and facilitating FTAs and corporate grabs
through neoliberalism, militarism and other policies and programs.
3. Promote solidarity among workers and peoples affected by FTAs and TNCs.
4. Push TNCs and states to address peoples demands for justice.
Actions/Campaigning
People Over Profit will initiate and support country, regional, and global actions vs FTAs and TNCs. To
launch the campaign network and gain more campaign initiators, People Over Profit will initiate
campaigns vs the following major FTAs covering the different global regions:
i. Asia-TTP and RCEP
ii. Africa-EPAs
iii. NorthAm/LatAM/Europe-TPP and TTIP

Actions will also be launched concerning developments on the negotiations of the WTO, UNCTAD, and
TISA which will promote the loss of jobs and livelihoods, violate labor rights, grab resources from the
people. Campaign initiators at country level can also start campaigns vs bilateral FTAs and investment
treaties. For example, Philippines-based initiators can launch campaigns vs the EU-PH FTA and JPEPA.
Below are some of the proposed activities to launch the People Over Profit network.
1. Release a sign-on call to action statement that reflects the impacts of FTAs and TNCs and
echoes peoples demands. The sign-on call to action will include a commitment to initiate the
campaign.
2. Produce information-education-communication materials that will aid analysis and
campaigning vs FTAs and TNCs. These can be in the form of country/sectoral primers and
briefers, infographics, and other popular forms.
3. Facilitate educational discussions and seminars on burning issues, popular courses, and sharing
of platforms for strategies and tactics. These can be offline and online.
4. Use social media to enable information-dissemination and broad outreach.
5. Conduct actions vs FTAs on key moments:
a. October 20 Launching/NO RCEP Week
b. Dec 10-Human rights day
c. April 2017- ASEAN Summit
d. November 2017 East Asia Summit
Core initiators
The campaign can serve as a way of reaching out to and mobilizing a broad range of labour groups,
economic and environmental justice groups and human rights organizations and institutions. Core
initiators include:

Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN)
IBON International
Asian Peasant Coalition (APC)
International Womens Alliance (IWA)
APWLD (tbc)