All North American workers, however, would benefit from the new labor chapter. Mexican “protection unions,” set up before anyone is hired to lock in low wages, would be effectively banned under the agreement.
However, five U.S. union leaders noted in a statement that “there is more work that needs to be done to deliver the needed, real solutions to NAFTA’s deeply ingrained flaws.”
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.
Ten organizations representing over 25,000 Mexican workers announced on 13 July the imminent creation of a Federation of Democratic and Independent Unions in the automotive sector.
The fallout from the trade wars could be horrific if Trump refuses to back down, while the countries he’s attacking ratchet up their own responses, whether in terms of tariffs or simply a refusal to buy American goods.
Free-market orthodoxy has failed. It’s time to consider our public interest. Europeans, Canadians and Mexicans buy more American goods and services than anyone else in the world. So why would the Trump administration be willing to start trade wars?
Unions in Canada suffered some setbacks in 2017. However, movements like the Fight for $15 and Fairness show a potential way ahead. In 2018, those looking to renew the labor movement need to build power from below, encourage greater membership involvement, forge international solidarity, and confront governments, even those that are ostensibly friendly.
Corporate America might regret calling the president’s bluff.
The trade treaty, now up for renegotiation, has displaced millions of Mexican workers, and many thousands of U.S. workers as well. A U.S. autoworker earns $21.50 an hour, and a Mexican autoworker $3, but a gallon of milk costs more in Mexico than it does here. People were migrating from Mexico to the U.S. long before NAFTA, but the treaty put migration on steroids.
Critics argue that NAFTA has accelerated the global “race to the bottom,” where governments dismantle workplace and environmental protections in order to attract capital investment. The tri-national participants in last week’s Chicago gathering protested outside the Mexican Consulate Friday afternoon, calling on the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto to listen to the demands of Mexico’s workers in the NAFTA renegotiations.
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