PITTSBURGH – Global sports brand Nike has come under fire for emailing its 44,000 staff to ask them to lobby for the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a pending global free trade agreement which many claim will make it easier for US companies to offshore jobs to low-wage countries which lack effective labour regulations. A leading labour rights NGO has claimed that Nike, whose suppliers employ more than 330,000 workers in Vietnam – one the most prominent TPP negotiating countries – is "the canary in the coal mine, pointing us to what unfettered 'free trade' looks like, and what the world will look like under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)."