Mateo Crossa and James M. Cypher
Dollars and Sense
On July 1, 2020, NAFTA was replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The new labor provisions require Mexico to restructure its labor relations system with US oversight. Mexican workers will most likely continue to suffer.
I learned two important lessons when young. One was that the company would do nothing for the workers unless forced by collective action. The other was that labor unions were instruments of both economic and social justice.
The 1994 NAFTA had both labour and environmental side agreements. These agreements were mere window dressing. The same can be expected with respect to the provisions of the Labour chapter in NAFTA 2.0.
Trump's "new" NAFTA is the old NAFTA. What we need are policies that benefits migrants, their home communities, and working people in the U.S. And we need a national policy that limits U.S. military and economic interventions abroad.
The imbalances and inequities generated by the global economy cannot be tackled by protecting a few politically well-connected industries, using manifestly ridiculous national security considerations as an excuse. Such protectionism is a gimmick, not a serious agenda for trade reform.
It was the left who diagnosed the ills of globalization. So why is the right eating our lunch? Today global capitalism is in a period of long-term stagnation following the global financial crisis. The newer protests represent a far broader disenchantment with capitalism than the protests of the 2000s. The building blocks of an alternative economic model are there - sustainable development, de-growth, and de-globalization.
After years of struggle, El Salvador workers have won a victory with a new minimum wage that has made an enormous impact in people's lives. Corporate power has not given up, preferring to pay starvation wages they are attempting to roll back the gains made.
UE General Executive Board
United Electrical Workers Union (UE)
UE's General Executive Board denounced Trump's racist and jingoistic proposals for a renegotion of NAFTA and instead called for a new set of trade policies that prioritize workers common interests and relies on international solidarity as its cornerstone. Any renegotiation of NAFTA must be oriented around the improvement of workers’ lives and protection of the environment focused on those regions of the continent where conditions are the most desperate.
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