[CTC] AFL-CIO joins with Mexican union to file NAFTA complaint with the Labor Department

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Here’s the case filing: https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NAALC%20submission%20JAN%2025%202018%20with%20UNT.pdf <https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NAALC%20submission%20JAN%2025%202018%20with%20UNT.pdf> 

 
INSIDE US TRADE
 
AFL-CIO joins with Mexican union to file NAFTA complaint with the Labor Department

January 25, 2018 
U.S. and Mexican unions will file a complaint with the U.S. Labor Department claiming Mexico is violating its NAFTA labor obligations,Reuters reported on Thursday <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-labor-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-mexican-unions-to-file-nafta-complaint-over-labor-bill-idUSKBN1FE1ZE> – a move timed to affect ongoing talks about retooling the agreement.

The AFL-CIO told Reuters that it was joining with Mexico's UNT in appealing to the Labor Department.

More from Reuters:

The complaint, seen by Reuters, argues that Mexico’s proposed labor law amendments to implement constitutional reforms will violate the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. It seeks efforts from the United States to prevent the measures from being implemented and to demand changes to bring Mexico into compliance.

“Simply by promoting this bill, which aims to undermine the constitutional reforms, the government of Mexico brazenly violates the central obligations of the NAALC – namely to ‘provide high labor standards’ and to ‘strive to improve those standards,'” the AFL-CIO and Mexico’s UNT National Workers Union said in the complaint.

Talks to overhaul the trade deal have been dogged by U.S. threats to withdraw from the pact, but the foreign ministers of Mexico and Canada on Thursday struck an upbeat note on future negotiations.

The report quotes the AFL-CIO's Celeste Drake lamenting the U.S. proposals on labor in the ongoing NAFTA renegotiation talks – and saying the timing of the complaint, during the sixth round of negotiations in Montreal this week, was no accident.

“It gives ammunition at the negotiating table to U.S. and Canadian negotiators to say, ‘Your violations on NAFTA are not in the past, they’re not over with,'” Drake said.

More than 180 lawmakers told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer this week that new NAFTA labor rules must be enforceable <https://insidetrade.com/node/161709> and must address wages in Mexico, and that Mexico must make progress on labor issues before Congress votes on a new agreement.

“The text USTR has currently proposed must therefore only be a starting point in our negotiations with Mexico,” the lawmakers wrote in a Jan. 23 letter <https://insidetrade.com/node/161702>. “Any new NAFTA must have strong, clear and binding provisions that address Mexico’s labor conditions. Given the ingrained resistance to labor rights in Mexico, we must demand real and identifiable progress on labor reforms take place before Congress votes on a renegotiated NAFTA.”
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