GATS Resource Kit

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GATS Resource Kit
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Introduction

• This kit has been prepared by unions in the New
  Zealand Council of Trade Unions who are concerned
  about the impact of GATS.

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How to Use this Kit

• Each of this kits five sections is a PowerPoint
  presentation that can be printed off to use as
  handouts, overhead transparencies or as a data
  show projection. There are more detailed notes
  below each PowerPoint providing further
  information to support a presenter. Some of the
  kits pages are hyperlinked so that presenters
  can move quickly to the parts of the kit that are
  relevant to them and ignore the other sections.
• Resources such as pamphlets and form letters are
  available.

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Resources in this Kit

1. This introduction
2. How GATS works
3. Examples of how GATS will affect your service
4. Campaign resources
5. Contact details for further information
6. The end

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GATSThe General Agreement on Trade in ServicesA
quick introduction to how it works
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The WTO

• GATS is one of a number of agreements under the
  World Trade Organisation (WTO)
• The WTO and GATS were both established in 1995
• The WTO now has 144 member countries including
  Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea
  and the Solomon Islands. Samoa, Tonga and
  Vanuatu are all presently seeking to become
  members.

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The goals of the WTO and GATS

1. To establish global rules for trade between
   nations
2. To ensure trade flows freely and predictably
3. To remove any restrictions such as government
   regulations that are considered to be barriers
   to trade in goods or services.

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The scope of GATS

• GATS limits governments from taking measures that
  inhibit free trade in services
• What are services?
• What is trade in services?
• What are measures taken by governments?
• Are any services exempted?

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What is a service?

1. Business Services (e.g. accountants, midwives)
2. Communications Services (e.g. postal,
   telecomunications)
3. Construction and Engineering Services
4. Distribution Services (retail and wholesale
   shopping)
5. Education Services (incl. professional standards)
6. Environmental Services (e.g. water supply, sewage)

1. Financial Services (e.g. insurance, banking)
2. Health Related and Social Services
3. Tourism and Travel Services (e.g. restaurants,
   travel agents)
4. Recreational, Cultural and Sporting Services
   (e.g. libraries, museums, rugby)
5. Transport Services
6. And other services not included elsewhere

Service includes the production, distribution,
marketing, sale and delivery of that service.
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What is trade in services?

• How to trade in services
• Services can be delivered
• across borders (e.g. internet, call centres)
• to consumers who travel abroad (e.g. students,
  tourists)
• by foreign companies establishing a local
  presence (e.g. privatisation, takeover)
• by personnel from overseas (e.g. consultants,
  skilled labour contracts)

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What are measures taken by member countries?

• Each country is restricted from taking measures
  which are considered barriers to trade of
  services. This includes measures taken by
• Central, regional and local governments and
  authorities
• Non-governmental bodies exercising powers
  delegated by them (e.g. water companies,
  professional organisations)

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Are any services exempted from GATS?

• GATS does not cover services supplied in the
  exercise of governmental authority
• However a service supplied in the exercise of
  governmental authority is defined as any service
  which is supplied
• neither on a commercial basis,
• nor in competition with one or more service
  suppliers
• This does not exempt most public services such as
  post, schools, hospitals, water supply etc.

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GATS Obligations

• There are two types of obligations GATS member
  countries have
• The first set is top down or general
  obligations which apply to every service, whether
  a country has scheduled it or not.
• Secondly, there are specific obligations which
  each country can choose to individually sign up
  to in their schedule.

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General (top down) ObligationsThese apply to
all services whether scheduled or not

• Most Favoured Nation Treatment
• Transparency
• Increased Participation of Developing Countries
• Domestic Regulations
• General Exceptions
• Subsidies

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Most Favoured Nation Status

• MFN means that each member country must treat all
  other member countries equally favourably.
• E.g Tonga could not choose to have free trade in
  health services with Samoa but not the USA. It
  must treat them both the same.

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Transparency

• All members must publish all relevant measures
  that effect their trade in services and inform
  the WTO of any changes to laws, regulations or
  administrative guidelines that will affect trade
  in services
• They must respond promptly to requests for
  information from any other member country

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Increased participation of developing countries

• Developing countries will be facilitated
  towards increased participation in trade of
  services by developing greater competition and
  effectiveness, improved access to distribution
  channels, and the liberalisation of market access
  in services of export interest to them

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Domestic Regulations

• Each country will establish and maintain
  administrative tribunals or procedures which
  provide for prompt review and appropriate
  remedies at the request of an effected overseas
  service supplier.
• Each country will ensure that any measures it
  takes that affect foreign companies are not more
  burdensome than necessary or act as
  unnecessary barriers to trade.

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General Exceptions to GATS

• GATS rules cannot be used to prevent measures
• Necessary to protect public morals or maintain
  public order
• Necessary to protect human, animal or plant life
  or health
• Necessary to prevent deceptive or fraudulent
  services
• To protect individual privacy and confidentiality
• Relating to safety
• To collect taxes on traded services or service
  suppliers
• To protect security interests

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Subsidies

• Subsidies are subject to GATS rules
• WTO members recognise that sometimes subsidies
  have distortive effects on trade. Members
  shall enter into negotiations to avoid such
  distorting effects
• Any Member that considers it is adversely
  affected by a subsidy of another member can
  request consultations with that member and must
  be afforded sympathetic consideration

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Specific Commitments

• Each country draws up a schedule of services
  which they commit to open to trade
• They can also list limitations on their
  commitments
• If a particular service is specified in a
  schedule then it is subject to the following
  specific commitments
• Market Access
• National Treatment
• Additional Commitments

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Part of a typical schedule
These columns indicate limitations on those
commitments MARKET ACCESS NATIONAL TREATMENT
This column indicates sectors the country has
committed to GATS

• Limitations come in four modes
• Mode 1 -across borders
• Mode 2 to consumers who travel
• Mode 3 by foreign companies establishing a
  local presence
• Mode 4 through mobile personnel

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Market Access

• The following types of limitations are not
  allowed in committed service sectors
• Limitations on the number of suppliers (e.g.
  number of universities, landfill sites)
• Limitations on the total value of service
  transactions or assets (e.g. size of a tourist
  hotel in a sensitive location)
• Limitations on the total number of service
  operations or on the total quantity of service
  output (e.g. number or size of suburban malls)
• Limitations on the total number of natural
  persons that may be employed in a particular
  service (e.g. limiting the number of foreign
  actors in a film being shot in New Zealand)
• Measures which restrict or require specific types
  of legal entity or joint venture to supply a
  service (e.g. requirement for joint venture with
  locals or local representation on a board)
• Limitations on the participation of foreign
  investment (e.g. maximum foreign shareholding in
  a news media company)

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National Treatment

• Each country must treat foreign service suppliers
  no less favourably than it treats locally owned
  service suppliers
• Foreign service providers may be treated the same
  or better, but not worse
• The rules for foreign and local services do not
  have to be identical

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Additional Commitments

• Members can negotiate further specific
  commitments into their schedule if they wish!

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Progressive Liberalisation

• Members shall enter into successive rounds of
  negotiations with a view to achieving a
  progressively higher level of liberalisation

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Modification of Commitments

• A member can modify any commitment in its
  schedule once it has been in place for three
  years
• First however it must negotiate a necessary
  compensatory adjustment to its other commitments
  that leaves all other members no less well off.
• Compensatory adjustments are made on a MFN basis
  every country is entitled to them
• Any member that is not happy with this adjustment
  can refer the matter to arbitration to enforce
  its right

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Dispute Settlement and Enforcement 1

• A member that breaches GATS may be reported to
  the WTOs Council for Trade in Services
• The council can refer the matter to binding
  arbitration
• The guilty member will be required to make
  adjustment in its schedule that compensates for
  any benefit that other members could reasonably
  have expected to accrue if it were not for the
  breach

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Dispute Settlement and Enforcement 2

• The case is heard in secret before a WTO panel of
  trade experts
• If the government is found in breach of GATS
  rules the WTO can order that the offending
  measure be withdrawn
• If the government refuses the WTO can authorise
  the complaining country to impose trade sanctions
  to the value of what that countrys services
  suppliers have lost or could reasonably have been
  expected to lose

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Current GATS negotiations

• The promised assessment of the impact of GATS
  prior to new negotiations has not occurred
• WTO argues that the assessment is technically not
  possible
• GATS negotiations began in 2000 and include
  changes to the agreement as well as new
  commitments
• A full new round of negotiations began in 2001 at
  Doha and are due to complete in 2005
• Each country must make initial offers of further
  liberalisation by 31 March 2003

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Click on your sector for examples of how GATS
could affect it
How could GATS affect Maori? Click Here

• Energy
• Broadcasting
• Post
• Distribution
• Education
• Tertiary Education
• Water
• Environment

• Health
• Tourism
• Local Govt
• Libraries and Museums
• Labour Rights
• Public Services and Privatisation

And, how does GATS affect Developing
Countries? Click Here
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Energy

• Publicly owned or controlled energy providers
  could find the are in competition with foreign
  providers
• Renewable energy sources could be exposed to full
  completion with non-renewable or environmentally
  harmful energy sources
• Measures to limit energy consumption could be
  illegal

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Broadcasting

• Countries could lose the ability to have local
  content quotas on television, radio and movies.
• They will not be able to nurture local creativity
  and talent
• the public could be exposed to an increasingly
  homogenised and non-critical international media
• Attempts to establish Maori television and radio
  will be undermined

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Post

• Courier companies could lode challenges against
  postal monopolies on delivering basic letters
• Or in New Zealands situation this pre existing
  deregulation could be cemented in so that state
  owned postal services could not be reintroduced
  in the future
• Postal services engaged in international
  competition will not be able to protect rural
  delivery costs

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Distribution

• GATS could lead to local shops increasingly being
  replaced with internet and telephone shopping.
  Jobs will be lost overseas.
• Local towns could lose the ability to limit large
  mega stores moving in and driving out smaller
  local shops. It could limit the ability to
  restrict the supply and distribution of alcohol
  and tobacco.

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Education

1. GATS may allow foreign franchise early childhood
   centres the same access to government funding as
   local community operated centres
2. Curriculum Resources with local content and
   issues will not be able to be able to be favoured
   over mass produced foreign curriculum resources

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Education

1. Governments may not be able to decide which
   institutions can and cannot educate teachers or
   what standards they should be required to meet to
   register
2. Private schools may be entitled to funding on an
   equal basis to public schools
3. Policies that favour internationalisation over
   local culture and society will not be able to be
   repealed

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Tertiary Education

• Foreign tertiary education providers are given
  the right to treatment at least as favourable as
  domestic private providers but the distinction
  between private and public has been blurred by
  funding and other changes during the 1990s.
• Competition and privatisation will increase and
  be locked in, contrary to current Government
  policy.

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Tertiary Education GATS could threaten

• staff and community representation on councils
• restrictions on the presence of foreign owned
  institutions or requirements on their ownership
• limits on the number of particular types of
  institutions such as the number of universities,
  either nationally or regionally
• limiting the number of PTEs

• limits on the number of institutions that can
  teach a particular subject either nationally or
  regionally
• limits on the number of students undertaking a
  particular qualification
• preferential access of domestic tertiary
  institutions to research grants and funding
• regulatory requirements re quality of provision
  and qualification requirements.

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Water

• The European Union's leaked secret request calls
  for the opening up of trade in water for human
  consumption and waste water.
• For cities with private water supplies, such as
  Auckland, this could prevent them regaining
  public ownership of their water. Large foreign
  companies could control entire water supplies
  with the sole motive making a profit of a citys
  people

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Environment

• GATS could lead to a inability to limit the
  number of landfills or oil drilling platforms for
  instance.
• It would inhibit government's ability to regulate
  environmental services so that peoples health,
  local jobs and the environments well-being is
  promoted ahead of short term profit.

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Health

• GATS may force public health to compete on a
  equal footing with private health care. This
  could lead to increased costs for patients and
  cost cutting by health care providers.
• Not for profit trusts and charity groups that
  provide services like aged care and ambulances
  will be in direct competition with foreign
  companies.
• Cultural safety training requirements in nursing
  may be considered illegal
• Many health care services (I.e. dentistry
  physiotherapy and midwifery) are not even
  included under the category health care but
  business

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Tourism and Travel

• Local communities could lose their ability to
  ensure tourism is planned and accords to their
  community values
• Foreign owned tourism companies may not be
  compelled to consider protecting local habitats
  and heritage.
• Companies with monopolies on resources, such as
  whale watching, may be exposed to unfettered
  competition

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Local Government

• GATS potentially undermines local government
  rights to prefer local businesses and use rates
  to generate local jobs and income.
• It could affect
• Subsidising low income housing projects
• Regulating casinos
• Regulating pesticide spraying
• Regulating public transport
• Subsidising community economic development
  initiatives that give preference to local hiring
  and purchasing

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Libraries, Museums and Sports

• Government funding to important cultural and
  democratic institutions such as museums and
  libraries may be required to be shared with
  foreign for profit competition.
• Increased deregulation of sports could see local
  sport stars moving overseas in greater numbers

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Labour Rights

• GATS will make it easier for foreign companies to
  contract out services work overseas, deliver
  services across borders over the internet and
  telephone, and even to bring service workers
  across borders
• To the extent that GATS contributes to
  privatisation of government services, public
  sector unions are likely to be replaced with
  non-unionised workers with lower wages and fewer
  benefits
• The GATS, like other WTO agreements, does not
  include any reference to ILO labour standards on
  child labour, discrimination, and worker rights.
  This sanctions trade without standards

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Public Services and Privatisation

• GATS could mean governments lose their ability to
  
• Limit the number of suppliers or reduce
  competition to protect important monopolies
• Regulate foreign competition requiring it to act
  in a certain way
• discriminate in favour of local ownership over
  foreign ownership when privatising their services
• Once in competition, public services find it hard
  to maintain universal quality and free services
  for their people

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Maori and the Treaty

• GATS rules treat everything as tradable
  commodity, undermining the treaty and core Maori
  values
• Despite the treaty Maori have no say in GATS
  treaty negotiation or ratification
• Maori commercial interests are currently
  protected from GATS but not non-commercial
  interests and concerns
• Maori community building enterprises could be
  placed in direct competition with foreign
  companies

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Developing Countries

• The public service sectors of many countries in
  the Global South have already been gutted by the
  IMF and World Bank's structural adjustment
  policies which require severe reductions in
  public budgets and privatisation of public
  services and assets. This opens up opportunities
  for multinationals to provide these services on a
  for-profit basis.
• Many people will be excluded from such essential
  services as health care, education, water and
  energy due to cost and lack of access. Under the
  GATS developing countries will not be able to
  turn back from the structural adjustment forced
  on them by the IMF and World Bank in sectors
  where they have made commitments.

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Campaign Resources

• This section of the kit contains resources to
  help your union begin campaigning and educating
  on GATS

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ContentsThese resources are currently being
prepared and will soon be added to the
presentation.

• Pamphlets
• Draft letter to local bodies
• Draft letter to school boards/community
  groups/etc
• Article for community newspapers/union journals
  etc
• Draft letter to MPs

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Contact for further information

• ProGATS organisations
• Anti-GATS organisations
• Australian Unions
• New Zealand Unions
• Pasifika Unions
• Global Unions

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ProGATS organisations

• The World Trade Organisation (WTO)
• Centre William Rappard, Rue de Lausanne 154,
  CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland.Tel [phone]
  11, Fax [phone], email
  enquiries_at_wto.org
• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and
  Trade (DFAT)
• R.G. Casey Building, John McEwen Crescent,
  Barton, ACT, 0221 Australia.Tel [phone],
  Fax [phone], email
• New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
  (MFAT)
• 195 Lambton Quay,Wellington - Private Bag 18 901,
  Wellington ,  New Zealand  Ph 64 4 439
  8000,   Fax [phone], e mail
  enquiries_at_mft.govt.nz
• The Trade Liberalisation Network
• PO Box 26 Wellington. Ph 64 4 9146320, Fax 64 4
  9146322

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Anti-GATS organisations

• World Development Movement (Britain)
• GATSwatch (Europe)
• The Alliance for Democracy (USA)
• AFTINET (Australia)
• Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Level 1, 46-48
  York St, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia, email
  pranald_at_piac.asn.au
• ARENA (New Zealand)
• PO Box 2450, Christchurch, New Zealand,
• Tel [phone], email arena.nz_at_clear.net.nz

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Australian Service Unions

• ACTU
• Level 2
• 393 Swanston Street
• Melbourne Vic 3000
• Tel [phone]
• Emailmailbox_at_actu.asn.au

• Websites
• NTEU
• AEU
• CPSU
• ASU

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New Zealand Service Unions

• NZCTU
• PO Box 6645
• Wellington
• Ph 04 385 1334
• Email peterc_at_nzctu.org.nz

• Websites
• NZNO
• PSA
• EMPU
• SFWU
• AUS
• ASTE
• PPTA
• NZEI

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Pasifika Unions

• SPOCTU South Pacific Oceania Council of Trade
  Unions
• PO Box 3817 Wellington NEW ZEALAND, Tel 64 4
  9170333, Fax [phone] Email
  mike.ingpen_at_psa.org.nz
• CIWA Cook Islands Workers Association
  IncorporatedP O Box 403, Rarotonga, Cook
  IslandsPacifique du SudCOOK ISLANDSTel (682)
  24422, Fax [phone], E-mail
  ciwa_at_oyster.net.ck
• FTUC Fiji Trades Union Congress32 Des Voeux
  Road, P O Box 1418, Suva, FIJITel (679) 315
  377/315, 402, 314 099/314 668, Fax (679) 300
  306, E-mail ftuc1_at_is.com.fj
• VCTU Vanuatu Council of Trade UnionsP O Box 089,
  Port Vila, VANUATU,
• Tel [phone], Fax [phone],
• E-mail synt_at_vanuatu.com.vu

• PNGTUC Papua New Guinea Trade Union CongressP O
  Box 4279, Boroko, National Capital District,
  PAPUA NEW GUINEATel [phone]/325, 9656,
  Fax [phone] 9657, E-mail
  daphne_at_dg.com.pg
• STUC Samoa Trades Union CongressPSA House,
  Fugalei, P O Box 2260, Apia, SAMOATel/Fax (685)
  22049, E-mail snuw_at_lesamoa.net
• FITA Friendly Islands Teachers' AssociationP O
  Box 859, Nuku'alofa, Tonga Islands, South
  Pacific, KINGDOM OF TONGATel/Fax [phone]

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Global UnionsWebsites

• Global Unions
• International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
• Education International
• Public Services International
• International Federation of Building and Wood
  Workers
• Trade Union Advisory Committee (OECD)
• International Metalworkers' Federation
• International Textile, Garment and Leather
  Workers' Federation

• International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel,
  Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers'
  Association
• International Federation of Chemical, Energy,
  Mine and General Workers' Union
• International Transport Workers Federation
• International Federation of Journalists
• Union Network International

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The End

• Thanks for using this resource
• Good luck with your campaign