Belabored Podcast #73: Shedding Light on TPP Secrets, with Celeste Drake

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? It’s hard to know since the deal is being negotiated almost entirely in secret. Belabored talks with Celeste Drake, Trade & Globalization Policy Specialist at the AFL-CIO, about the ramifications of the trade deal for workers around the globe.

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What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? It’s hard to know, since like many trade deals, this massive plan with ramifications for workers around the globe, not to mention environmental protections that affect our ability to deal with climate change, is being negotiated almost entirely in secret. But our guest this week, Celeste Drake, Trade & Globalization Policy Specialist at the AFL-CIO, knows as much as anyone outside of a few locked rooms knows about the TPP, so we asked her to fill us in on what’s happening—and why the whole thing has to be so hush-hush, anyway.

We also bring you updates from Wisconsin, where Scott Walker is up to no good, from McDonald’s, where workers are being told to use condiments for first aid cream, on the continuing precarious conditions of guestworkers, and one company’s novel solution to women’s global oppression. And for Argh, we think about women in tech, and why maybe we should let go of this whole “work” thing anyway.

News

McDonald’s workers: We get burned on the job, told to ‘put mayonnaise on it’ (Daily Kos)

Sarah: Scott Walker pushes through “right-to-work” law — and labor takes another hit (Salon)

Scott Walker signs right-to-work bill (The Wisconsin Journal Sentinel)

Michelle: This Boutique Bakery Was Paying Its Workers Peanuts (The Nation)

GAO Report

Sarah: Can Uber’s New Plan Really Drive Gender Equality? (The Daily Dose)

Uber lawsuit

Uber and Lyft face independent contractor challenges (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Conversation:

Celeste Drake, AFL-CIO Trade and Globalization Policy Specialist

Michelle: Backdoor Talks on Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Aim to Globalize Corporatocracy (In These Times)