[CTC] Neal: NAFTA working group shares AFL-CIO concerns over Mexico's labor reform funding

[Arthur Stamoulis]

 Neal: USMCA working group shares AFL-CIO concerns over Mexico's labor reform funding
By Maria Curi, Inside US Trade 
09/24/2019

A House working group tasked with negotiating U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement issues with the administration shares the AFL-CIO’s concerns over Mexico’s budget proposals for labor reform in 2020, Ways & Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) told reporters on Tuesday.
 
Neal, the leader of the nine-member working group set up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), met with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Tuesday and said afterward that the group “fully endorses” Trumka’s “position that a cut on enforcement is unacceptable. So, we believe President Trumka is on the right path.”
 
USMCA calls for Mexico to implement a slew of labor reforms that were signed into law earlier this year. However, U.S. labor groups and many Democratic lawmakers have said adequate resources must be applied to ensure those reforms are meaningful. Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Martha Bárcena in July responded to those concerns, saying the budget proposal would offer the needed details.
 
After Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent the budget proposal for 2020 to the Mexican Congress earlier this month, the AFL-CIO and United Steel Workers called for more clarity on what the budget proposal meant for labor reform implementation. Both groups flagged a proposed 35.8 percent cut to Mexico’s Labor Ministry as worrisome.
 
Mexican Labor Minister Luisa María Alcalde Luján has clarified on Twitter that the budget proposal “guarantees compliance with the terms of the labor reform” through the creation of certain agencies and that the budget proposal currently under consideration “supports” only “the first stage.” More funding would be needed, Alcalde Luján said.
 
But Democrats have yet to be convinced. “There’s a lot of concern about the [Mexican] budget,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the working group who attended Tuesday’s meeting with Trumka, told reporters. “That’s a problem."
 
Mexico’s 2020 budget proposal, Schakowsky said, “was sort of the first measure.”
 
Trumka was “encouraging” on Tuesday, Neal said, “but he still believes there’s a ways to go on enforcement and I think that he’s correct on that.”
 
The chairman added that he hoped to begin meeting twice-weekly separately with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Trumka as the two sides continue to hammer out differences in four key areas, including labor.
 
After meeting with Lighthizer last week, Neal said he wanted to “intensify” discussions with the administration. The working group, he said then, planned to present USTR a counterproposal this week detailing how Democrats believe the administration could better address the party’s concerns with the labor, environment, pharmaceutical and enforcement provisions of the deal. USTR sent its proposal to the working group earlier this month.
 
Neal said Trumka has been in “full discussion” with Lighthizer on the proposal and counterproposal and that he doesn’t “think there’s any confusion on that front.” Neal has previously said the documents were being kept under wraps due to national security concerns.
 
Ahead of the working group’s meeting with Lighthizer this week, Neal said he’s “got a couple ideas” he’s “going to kick around with Speaker Pelosi” and the other members of the working group.
Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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