[CTC] NAFTA 2.0 is bad for workers

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-usmca-is-bad-for-workers/2019/09/15/2f9b23aa-d673-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html <https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-usmca-is-bad-for-workers/2019/09/15/2f9b23aa-d673-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html>

The USMCA is bad for workers

By Tim Burga, President of the Ohio AFL-CIO
 09/15/2019
 
In his Sept. 11 op-ed, “The time is now to pass the USMCA,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) called on Congress to approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Trump administration’s proposed replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA and subsequent trade deals based on it have been a disaster for the U.S. manufacturing sector. In Ohio, about 50,000 blue-collar jobs were lost because of NAFTA as manufacturing plants closed and relocated to Mexico.
 
Mr. Portman claimed this time would be different because the new NAFTA has “enforceable” labor standards, including a requirement that at least 40 percent of vehicles made in Mexico must be assembled by workers “making at least $16 an hour.” As written, the deal allows any party to block an enforcement proceeding by refusing to appoint arbitrators to a dispute panel. And the $16 wage rule is an average, not a floor, so it includes engineers and other highly paid white-collar workers. This flaw would allow Mexican auto factories to continue to pay the vast majority of workers poverty wages.
 
For more than 25 years, we have suffered from lost jobs and lower wages because of “free trade” deals that place the interests of multinational corporations over those of workers and the environment. Congress should oppose the new NAFTA until it fixes what is wrong with the current one.
 
Tim Burga, Columbus, Ohio
 
The writer is president of the Ohio AFL-CIO.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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