"TTIP has the potential to have a significant effect on health and safety regulations and MEPs must ensure that it is not used to undermine any existing EU and UK health and safety regulations, or prevent any further ones being passed.
The EU has, on average, one third of the workplace fatality rate of the USA. In part that is down to the stronger regulatory framework, underpinned by the 1989 EU Framework Directive. Europe has also, more recently, developed stronger Chemicals regulations in the form of REACH."
The warnings in Dave Joyce's letter to MEPs ahead of their scheduled vote on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Investor-State-Dispute Settlement (ISDS) element within it, could not be starker and any more urgent for worker's health, safety and welfare since the industrial revolution!
The risk of total annihilation of major health and safety protection of both workers and consumers cannot be under stated in the event that both the TTIP as it stands now and the more insidious ISDS within it; are accepted by MEPs in their vote on the 10th June.
Dave, goes on to make this very clear, as he foresees the major risks to current EU standards:
"TTIP could result in the harmonisation of many health and safety regulations, including Chemicals, or introduce a system of mutual recognition which would have the effect of harmonising standards down to the lowest common denominator. At the very least TTIP might involve a process for examining current and future regulation at transatlantic level. A 2013 study by OECD into existing “International regulatory Cooperation” was extremely critical saying that it was “mainly guided by political considerations and not informed of a clear understanding of the benefits etc.” The emphasis on all previous attempts to harmonise regulation has been to benefit business and trade. If this were to happen to health and safety regulations as a result of TTIP this could, quite literally, be disastrous."
Dave also warns MEPs that they are in grave danger of allowing the free trade agreement to supercede the democratic right and duty to protect citizens of Europe that all EU Governments currently have, all in the name of private business profits:
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We fear that there is a real risk that existing standards could be undermined and certainly future safety regulation might be harder to get through at either UK national or EU level if TTIP goes ahead without proper protection built in.
We know from the December 2013 leaked EU Commission document that there is a proposed "Regulatory Cooperation Council” which would assess existing and future regulations on both sides of the Atlantic to work towards mutually acceptable standards, and a procedure where a comprehensive system of consultation would be triggered if new regulation is proposed, or if regulation is already in place has a “significant” impact on trade.
This would hand control over to Big Business and Multi-National Corporations, enabling them to veto new Health and Safety Regulations and to repeal existing ones - THAT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO GO AHEAD."
He also identifies one of the biggest culprits behind the TTIP and ISDS and identifies the risk to public health:
" Many of the proposals seem to have come from the Chemical Industry who are mounting a campaign aimed at slowing down or stopping any new regulations on safety or environmental grounds, but they would cover all types of health and safety regulations."
Dave adds in the penultimate paragraph of his letter:
The UK and EU must continue with its successful, well-established tripartite approach to workplace safety in any regulatory process, with involvement of Unions and Business interests right from the beginning. TTIP should only be used to raise (rather than lower) standards of health and safety protection and health and safety law enforcement) on both sides of the Atlantic. Finally if ISDS cannot be prevented from inclusion in any final agreement between the EU and US then the rules governing dispute resolution must fully endorse the existing EU/UK “right to regulate” on health and safety.
He concludes by reminding MEPs and the EU Parliament that:
" The authority of MEPs and the EU Parliament should not be given away to private interests.
The Commission must ensure that the adoption of national legislation continues to be performed exclusively by legitimate legislative bodies of the EU, promoting the highest standards of protection for workers in the areas of health, safety, the environment, consumer and workers’ rights, and public services of general interest. In the EU public consultation on ISDS 97 % of responses opposed ISDS.
That cannot be ignored by the EU Parliament that represents those people."
You can download Dave Joyce's letter in full here
Support the 38 Degrees campaign against the TTIP by writing to the only UK MEP willing to vote against it! here
Source: Dave Joyce / Unionsafety
