[CTC] Mexico must do more to meet NAFTA requirements, AFL-CIO's Trumka says

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Quotes more useful than headline...

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/mexico-must-do-more-to-meet-usmca-requirements-afl-cios-trumka-says <https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/mexico-must-do-more-to-meet-usmca-requirements-afl-cios-trumka-says>

Mexico must do more to meet USMCA requirements, AFL-CIO's Trumka says
By: Sean Higgins  
4/23/2019
 
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Tuesday that a set of labor reform laws Mexico is poised to enact to fulfill its obligations under President Trump's U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade do not go far enough.
 
Trumka's negative appraisal of the legislation indicates that Mexico passing its reforms might not be sufficient to get U.S. Democrats on board with the deal.
 
The Mexican legislature's lower house passed a reform package last week as part its USMCA obligations and the Mexican senate is expected to adopt it before before the end of the month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a major union ally, has declined to schedule a House vote on USMCA until the Mexican reforms pass and U.S. lawmakers can determine that they meet the requirements.
 
"The reforms that were passed by one house [in Mexico], I think, meet the standard that was put in the annex [to USMCA]," Trumka told the Washington Examiner. "They still have another [legislative] step to go through. But that is only part one. Even if you have those laws, that doesn't mean that you have the ability or will to enforce them. What we want to see is that they have the [legal] infrastructure [in Mexico] to support the bill and the resources to do it."
 
That would include renegotiating 175,000 existing Mexican union contracts created under the old system, Trumka said. He added that Mexico didn't need to do all of that first but "we want to see their ability to do that." That would mainly require a new budget that allocated more to enforcement, he said.
 
Trumka recalled a recent meeting he was present at in which a Mexican ambassador told a room full of outside business investors, "I know you're worried about the labor laws we have on the books. But don't worry. We don't enforce them. That has stuck in my head over the years."
 
Pelosi and other Democrats have not commented on whether the current Mexican reform package is sufficient. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett expressed confidence Monday that the Trump administration could get congressional approval — if Pelosi would just allow it. "I think the vote counters are saying that we have got all of the votes we need. Speaker Pelosi needs to bring it to the floor so that the thing can be passed. And then in the Senate everything is fine," Hassett told CNBC Monday.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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