The Multilateral Agreement on Investment is dead but has been revisited in the form of the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trades in Services (GATS), which the Australian Government signed in 1994 and is now coming into effect.

Like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, GATS is a charter of rights for corporations which restricts the rights of governments to regulate them. GATS restricts the rights of governments to regulate global corporations.
It opens up all services, including education, to full overseas competition and guarantees transnational education providers the right to both operate and receive government funding.
At Federation Annual Conference delegates stated in a resolution that public education was under threat from government support of GATS.
"This attack on the integrity and inviolability of Australian education, in particular public education, must be repelled," Conference resolved.
Council of Canadians national volunteer chairperson and globalisation opponent Maude Barlow told an ACTU Congress fringe workshop recently: "At the heart of the transformation of the global economy is an all-out assault on virtually every public sphere of life, including the democratic underpinnings of our legal system."
Ms Barlow said the tribunals and enforcement systems of the new trade regimes supersede the legal systems of nation states and supplant domestic judicial systems by setting up dispute resolution procedures that sit outside national courts and laws.
She said what makes the World Trade Organisation (WTO) so powerful was that it has both the legislative and judicial authority to challenge laws, policies and programs of countries that do not conform to WTO rules, and to strike them down if they seem to be too "trade restrictive". Cases are decided -in secret- by a panel of three trade bureaucrats. Once a WTO ruling is made, worldwide conformity is required. A country is obligated to harmonise its laws or face the prospect of perpetual trade sanctions or fines.
The WTO contains no minimum standards to protect the environment, labour rights, social programs or cultural diversity. It has already been used to strike down a number of key nation-state environmental, food safety and human rights laws.
What has this got to do with public education?
Under GATS, any aspect of the service "education" is potentially open to foreign competition, from curriculum development, to owning and operating schools, to hiring of teachers. If award wage conditions are seen as being too "restrictive", then the private corporation seeking to employ teachers would have the right to challenge the laws. If curriculum requirements are seen as "too restrictive" then, despite government intentions of certain quality provision, they could be undermined. In the trades and professions, for example, under GATS, there would be mutual recognition of qualifications. This could apply equally to teachers as to plumbers or dentists. If Australian standards were seen as "too restrictive", there would be a case for challenge.
In the matter of private schools, a section of GATS states that if government subsidy is already available to any private provider, then the same subsidy would also have to be paid automatically to a foreign entrant to the field. If a government declined to do so, then the corporation would be entitled to sue for an equivalent amount, claiming an impediment to its activities.
What can we do?
* Become as informed as possible about the processes of globalisation. Read for yourself by visiting the WTO website
* Lobby all political parties by email, writing letters, speaking to parliamentarians. The ALP is as committed to the processes of globalisation as the Coalition.
* Join an activist group. From September to a meeting of many of the world's leading economists and politicians will take place at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Activist groups around the country are planning to take action (see websites below).
Federation's library has several books on issues of globalisation and trade. Contact the library for a bibliography of resources available for borrowing by all members.
The following web sites are useful places to start:
* Global Exchange a non-profit research, education, and action center dedicated to promoting people-to-people ties around the world. Includes email lists to subscribe to.
* Council of Canadians: an independent, non-partisan citizen's interest group of which Maude Barlow is a key figure.
* S11: an activist network planning action around the September 11 to meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne.
Sally Edsall is a Research Officer. Please contact the Publications Section if you would like a copy of a recent speech by Maude Barlow about WTO services negotiations and the threat to Canada's public health and education systems.

By Sally Edsall


For further information Contact:

NSW Teachers Federation

Email:
info@nswtf.org.au

WWW:
http://www.nswtf.org.au