2024 USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism labor complaint about VW Mexico highlights complexities in modern Mexican labor policy

Tom Arrowsmith, Unsplash (GrowKudos)

My most recent commentary in the International Labor Rights Case Law Journal centers around the agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments to settle the VW Mexico complaint filed under the USMCA Labor Rapid Response Mechanism. You can read the commentary here What Happened to el sindicato de los Vochitos? Mexico and the United States Settle Freedom of Association Complaint.

Here is the link to the agreement between the two governments establishing a course of remediation.

Although I wrote about the NAFTA labor side agreement for many years, this is the first time I have ever written about the USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism. Part of the reason is that in the intervening years between entry into force of NAFTA / NAALC and USMCA (and after) there have been so many fascinating developments in the law and policy surrounding the nexus between globalization, labor, and women's rights. Did an arbitral panel really find serious labor violations in Guatemala but no violation of the CAFTA-DR? Yes. Did the World Bank establish policies and institutions to effectively address the impact of a development policy (creation of a dam) and the access to jobs of women in the informal center? Yes, that seems to be the case. Did the German National Contact Point really issue a report finding that union busting by a subsidiary of a supplier in the supply chain of a German company was out of scope of the OECD Guidelines because it was a second tier manufacturer - even though it the companies shared owners? Yes, sadly. 

And of course, the biggest topic of all - is there really an agreement between European Union nations and and former European colonies that has been in existence in some permutation since the 1960s? Yes, astonishingly. Yes.

Another reason for not writing about the USMCA Labor Rapid Response Mechanism has been that everyone in the field has been writing about it. It is the new policy bauble, the new shiny object that everyone wants to extol and emulate. Why chime in when there are so many other developments and innovations to examine and consider and criticize?

And finally, the USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism has been working. My point of view is that it has been working due to a rare historical alignment between the U.S. and Mexican governments during the Biden administration - but it still, it was working. Why write about something that works? What's the fun in that? Quite a lot, it seems.

The VW Mexico RRM case is like dim sum - an entire meal in one tiny package. If you could roll up 70 years of labor history into one case, this may have been it. It's not just that workers filed a RRM complaint against their employer - they filed the complaint against the union too. And the Independent VW union isn't just any union. It isn't an undemocratic charro union. Not only is the union famous for its independence and militancy, but it remains vibrant. Seven slates of candidates ran for union officer positions in 2023. There was just one tiny thing - an unwritten rule that the outgoing union leadership would be fired if it lost - a violation of Mexican labor law both before and after the 2019 labor law reform. And who represented the men who lost their jobs when they lost the election to keep their union leadership positions? The Network of Women Trade Unionists (Red de Mujeres Sindicalistas de Mexico). They've opened an advocacy office to file significant complaints under the USMCA. Wow. All those decades of filing ill-fated petitions about women workers (and men, too) in factories at the border and the virtual border in Mexico ... for that experience to be applied more generally is amazing. 

And now - in the midst of multiple trade wars started by my own country these last couple of months, it is hard to imagine that kind of alignment on labor issues between the U.S. and Mexican governments - but stranger things have happened. As labor culture in Mexico has its "moment" with the development of innovative and better functioning institutions, the U.S. is in a completely different kind of moment, with the executive branch working to devour and destroy labor institutions like the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Maybe we, too, could use the advocacy skills of our friends at RMS.

New article by Gabriel & McDonald brings fresh perspective on cross-border migrant advocacy

In a new article published in Third World Quarterly, Christina Gabriel and Laura Macdonald bring a fresh social movements perspective to research migrant worker petitions filed under NAFTA's labor side agreement, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC).

CDM and WCL

Published on August 6, 2020, New architectures for migration governance: NAFTA and transnational activism around migrants’ rights compares two migrant worker petitions filed under the NAALC - the 2001 Washington Apple case and the 2013 H-2B Carnival Workers case. The article discusses the different roots of the petitions (trade unions v. legal aid attorneys and cross-border allies) and shows how the petition processes contributed to the development and strengthening of new and existing cross-border advocacy groups.

The article is an important contribution to the growing literature analyzing the use of regional legal mechanisms to advocate on behalf of migrant workers in North America. Definitely worth the read!

NAFTA and NAALC: Twenty-Five Years of Trade-Labour Linkage now on Kindle!

NAFTA and NAALC: Twenty-Five Years of Trade-Labour Linkage Second Edition (Compa & Brooks, 2019) is now available on Amazon Kindle!

Great news for people like me who primarily read e-books.

NAFTA & NAALC transition to USMCA with cross-border issues affecting women workers in the foreground

My latest piece in Regulating for Globalization on the recent report issued by the Mexican government on sex discrimination in US work visa programs maps North America's transition from NAFTA and NAALC to USMCA / T-MEC / CUSMA on July 1, 2020 through a report issued by the Government of Mexico in response to a 2016 labor petition filed under the NAALC.

The excellent petition filed by the bi-national organization Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM) was both ground breaking and perfect for resolution under a regional agreement like NAALC or USMCA given the cross-border nature of recruitment and hiring under the US agricultural H-2A, low wage H-2B, and other US work visas, including the NAFTA T-1 visa for professional workers.  The companion petition filed by UFCW Canada about sex discrimination in recruitment for Canada's binational Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) was similarly ground-breaking. Some articles and commentary on the petitions include:

• Contesting Gender Discrimination in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (Gabriel & Macdonald, 2019)
• Transnational Labor Solidarity versus State-Managed Coercion: UFCW Canada, Mexico, and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (Galvez, Godoy & Meinema, 2019) in Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America (Eds. Bada & Gleeson, 2019)
• Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in International Guest Worker Programs: An Analysis of Two 2016 Petitions Filed Under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (Brooks, 2018)
• Illegally Alienated: Migrant Women And The Lack Of Equal Representation (Jenkins, 2018)

While it does not appear as though a report has been released in response to the UFCW Canada NAALC petition, an early report from UFCW Canada indicated that the union was able to obtain a positive outcome from Mexico's national anti-

discrimination commission Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación (Nacional Council for the Prevention of Discrimination - CONAPRED). Under an agreement mediated by CONAPRED, Mexico's labor ministry Secretariat del Trabajo y Previsión Social (Secretary of Labor and

Social Protection - STPS) agreed to eliminate gender discrimination by 2021 (Galvez, Godoy & Meinema, 2019, p. 205). Nevertheless, they note in their 2019 book chapter that the percentage of women in the SAWP has not increased since the original petition was filed. 

Get the latest on USMCA's labor chapter and other North American free trade agreements here

The 2019 update to the monograph NAFTA, NAALC, and Labor Provisions in North American Free Trade Agreements, part of Kluwer's International Encyclopaedia of Laws, is now available online.

This comprehensive and up-to-date 270-page resource contains essential

background on the structure and operation of labor provisions in North American free trade agreements, including NAFTA, USMCA, CAFTA-DR, TPP, CPTPP, TTIP, CETA, EU-Mexico, and Canadian and US bilateral free trade agreements with partners in Latin America and around the world - not to mention a complete digest of every petition filed under the NAALC and labor provisions of other North American FTAs.

Highlights from the last 5 years in the new edition include:

• New labor petitions filed under NAALC, Canadian and US FTAs with Colombia, and the US-Peru FTA;
• The latest developments in pending cases filed under CAFTA-DR and the US-Peru FTA;
• Addition of the 2006 labor petition filed under the US-Jordan FTA;
• New sections comparing labor provisions in multi-lateral FTAs such as TPP, CPTPP, CETA, and the proposed TTIP; and
• A new chapter comparing the NAALC to labor provisions in the signed, but not-yet-ratified USMCA.

This monograph will be published as a book by Kluwer in late 2019.

Bold and innovative NAFTA labor petitions spotlight gender discrimination in international migrant labor market

In July  2016, UFCW Canada and Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM)  filed petitions under NAFTA’s labor side agreement alleging sex discrimination in recruitment for the Canadian  Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the U.S. H-2A and H-2B agricultural and low wage visa programs. In early 2018, CDM filed a supplement to its petition, arguing that sex discrimination is pervasive in recruitment for professional visa programs as well as low wage visa programs.

Because of sex discrimination in recruitment, less than 4 percent of the workers who participate in U.S. and Canadian agricultural and low wage guest worker programs are women. While working conditions in guest worker programs are rife with human and labor rights issues, they still represent economic opportunity for women who would like to participate.  Moreover, women who are excluded are forced into migration through informal channels, leading to the risk of violence, human trafficking, and even worse working conditions.

These two bold and innovative petitions highlight in a tangible and human way the bifurcation of global migrant labor markets.  Global migrant labor markets bifurcated based on gender exclude women from economic opportunity based on gender stereotyping. Discrimination in recruitment and treatment of women in the global migrant labor market is the norm, not the exception.

My forthcoming article in the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journaldiscusses and compares the facts and claims raised in each petition under applicable legal frameworks in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). The article explores possible outcomes of the petitions given the nuances and political environments in the Canadian and U.S. cases and the current state of relations between the Government of Mexico and its North American neighbors. Finally, the article places sexism and gender stereotyping in North American guest worker programs in an international context, discussing other examples of sexism in the global labor market and existing norms in ILO Conventions and CEDAW Recommendation No. 26 on Women Migrant Workers.

In the Canadian case, the article argues that the Governments of Canada and Mexico should renegotiate international agreements that form the SAWP to implement the recommendations of the Mexican Council on the Prevention of Discrimination. In the U.S. case, the article argues that the Government of Mexico should pursue the establishment of an Evaluative Committee of Experts (ECE) under Article 23 of the NAALC if the U.S. does not enact and enforce meaningful reforms to eliminate sex discrimination in the H-2A and H-2B visa programs.

Also published on IntLawGrrls and Medium.

Mexico moves toward elimination of labor protection contract system with some hurdles along the way

The practice of protection unionism in Mexico appears to be on its way out - though slowly, with several bumps in the road.  In early 2017, the Mexican Congress passed sweeping constitutional reforms to eliminate protection unionism through replacement of tripartite labor boards with independent labor courts.

My recent piece in the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law International Newsletter provides an update on legislative efforts to implement the constitutional reforms. According to Proceso, a leading political analysis magazine in Mexico, President Peña Nieto's administration introduced the reforms to meet labor commitments as part of the process of negotiation the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Labor protection contracts exist at the intersection of international labor standards, free trade, and corporate compliance - particularly compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).  Long denounced by Mexican and international labor and human rights activists, these contracts are negotiated by employers and representatives of "official" unions before a company opens its doors - and without the participation or knowledge of workers.

Less recognized by Mexican and international companies that engage in protection unionism in Mexico is the serious corporate compliance risk presented by the practice because of the current configuration of tripartite labor boards in Mexico.  Payments made by employers to leaders of "official" unions may in fact be payments to government officials, since these individuals often serve as labor representatives on tripartite labor boards and as officials in local and federal government.  For example, as reported by Proceso in 2010, after signing a labor protection contract, an employer in the State of Jalisco paid 2,000 pesos a month to a trade union leader for "paperwork processing."

In recent years, Mexico has increased its efforts to eliminate corruption and bribery of government officials.  In March 2018, the labor department of the State of Jalisco introduced a new campaign against corruption.  Mexico will not eliminate government corruption without eliminating the practice of protection unionism, however.

New article assesses FTA labor provisions from gender perspective

My forthcoming article in the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal assesses labor provisions in US and Canadian free trade agreements both generally and from a gender perspective. See SSRN for a link to the article:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3056990. See this IntLawGrrls piece for a sketch of the main arguments and points made in the article.

Policy makers and advocates in both countries have made great strides in the past quarter century since NAFTA was negotiated, but much work remains to be done.  The key to progress has been creative advocacy efforts by trade unions and workers' human rights advocates on the one hand and intelligent, creative, and responsive problem solving methods by policy makers.

The article shows how both advocates and policy makers have overcome definitional and procedural shortcomings in FTA labor provisions to make them useful tools for worker rights advocacy.  It also highlights weaknesses and shortcomings in the texts of FTA labor provisions that must be addressed to make them truly transformational.

Maquiladora Solidarity Network publishes must-read briefing paper on labor reforms to Mexico's Consitution

In July 2017, the Maquiladora Solidarity Network published a must-read briefing paper on recent labor reforms to Mexico's Constitution.  Approved by the Mexican Congress in October and November 2016 and by a majority of Mexican state legislatures in January 2017, these reforms resulted from conditionalities imposed on Mexico as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation process and decades of advocacy and pressure by Mexican and international labor and human rights activists.  They went into effect in February 2017.

The purpose of the constitutional labor reforms is to remove legal obstacles to workers' right to organize democratically to negotiate collective bargaining agreements, eliminate the corrupt employer practice of negotiating protection contracts with unrepresentative unions, and to completely revamp Mexico's labor justice system so that it is independent, fair and transparent.

MSN clearly and cogently outlines the new reforms, discusses the 2016 reforms in the context of Mexico's 2012 labor law reform project, and provides an insightful analysis of what comes next in the legislative process and the coming challenges and risks in implementing the reforms.  One major challenge that remains is the dissolution of tri-partite labor and conciliation boards in order to replace them with impartial federal and local labor courts - and what to do with existing labor board functionaries who may either lose their jobs or transfer undesirable institutional cultural practices to the new labor court system.  One key risk is the possibility that labor justice reforms will stall without full implementation in the face of legislative opposition from employer groups and insufficient pressure from the U.S. Trade Representative in the current NAFTA renegotiation process.

MSN recommends that international brands, employers, trade unions, worker support groups, human rights organizations and the international community continue to support Mexico's labor reform process and encourage the Mexican government to approve implementing legislation that is true to the underlying spirit and intent of the Constitutional Reform.  MSN's July 2017 briefing paper provides the perfect foundation for this work.

Shout outs in Workplace Law and Workers' Comp Law blogs

A Little Bit of Lime (well, IntLawGrrls) got shout outs in the Workplace Law and Workers' Comp Law blogs this week for a piece on making the human rights case for keeping the right to compensation for workplace injuries in the NAFTA.  Hopefully this will draw more attention to the need to ensure that immigrant workers receive proper compensation when they are injured on the job instead of being detained, jailed, deported or worse.

Making the human rights case for including compensation for workplace injuries in free trade agreements

My recent piece on IntLawGrrls on making the human rights case for including compensation for workplace injuries in free trade agreements is reproduced here.

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According to lore, laws requiring compensation for workplace injuries came about as a Grand Bargain between workers and employers.  In exchange for limited liability, employers would ensure that workers receive medical care and wage benefits for workplace injuries without having to prove that the employer was at fault.  This bargain has become frayed and tattered over the last few decades as employers and insurers find ways to shirk their responsibility toward injured workers.  This is especially the case when it comes to immigrant workers, as evidenced by two hair raising reports published by Pro Publica and The New York Times in recent weeks.

For many undocumented workers in the U.S., suffering a workplace injury can lead to detention, deportation and worse, as reported by Michael Grabell and Howard Berkes in their August 16, 2017 Pro Publica article, They Got Hurt at Work. Then They Got Deported.  Although public policy and extensive case law in the U.S. guarantee workers' compensation coverage for undocumented immigrants, insurers have found a way to avoid paying claims by reporting injured workers to federal immigration authorities. Grabell and Berkes tell the story of father of three who spent a year and a half in jail and immigrant detention before being deported after suffering a severe back injury due to a fall at work.  After the worker's doctor recommended expensive back surgery, his employer's insurer reported him to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for using a false social security number.  Other workers find themselves ambushed by ICE agents after giving depositions at their lawyer's office or attending hearings.  One mother of three who had been in the U.S. since she was a teenager spent years in jail and immigration detention after suffering a workplace injury, only to learn upon finally being released that the father of her children sexually abused their 10-year-old daughter.

Having legal documentation is no guarantee that immigrant workers receive proper compensation for workplace injuries.  In his August 13, 2017 New York Times article Foreign Farmworkers in Canada Fear Deportation if They Complain, Dan Levin reported the story of a father of four from Jamaica who worked in Ontario for 9 seasons under a Canadian temporary agricultural labor program until he was sent home in 2008 after hurting his back while picking peaches.  Although he was permanently disabled, compensation for his injury ended in 2011 because he would be physically able to work as a cashier in Ontario - despite being ineligible for a Canadian work visa and unable to obtain a visa to appear in a hearing appealing the decision.  Migrant workers with temporary labor visas in the U.S. often find themselves uninvited to return to work in the U.S. after they suffer workplace injuries or complain about workplace conditions, encountering extensive cross-border administrative and legal complications when they try to obtain compensation rightly owed them under the law.

In addition to rupturing a century-old Grand Bargain between employers and workers, utilization of federal immigration procedures to avoid full payment of workers' compensation claims is a violation of the human rights of immigrant workers.  In November 2016, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights publicly released a report defining the right to compensation for workplace injuries as being within the scope of human rights protection.  In its report on the merits in the case of Leopoldo Zumaya and Francisco Berumen Lizalde, two undocumented  workers who were deported after making workers' compensation claims, the IACHR found the U.S. to be in violation of its human rights obligations under the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

In particular, the IACHR found that the U.S. violated the undocumented immigrants' rights under Article II (right to equality before the law) and Article XVI (right to social security).  In the case of Mr. Lizalde (who, unlike Mr. Zumaya, received no compensation before being deported), the Commission found that the U.S. had violated Article XVII (right to recognition of juridical personality) and Article XVIII (right to a fair trial).  In its legal analysis, the IACHR concluded that the right to equal protection applies to nationals and non-nationals alike regardless of their legal status and authorization to work.  The Commission also observed that workers' compensation programs fall within the definition of "proper conditions" of work under Article 45(b) of the OAS Charter, defined as those that "ensure life, health, and a decent standard of living for the worker and his family..."  These rights apply when the State allows private persons (such as insurers and employers) to act with impunity toward the human rights of others.  Though not integral to its analysis, the IACHR mentioned that countries have an obligation to protect the physical integrity of people within their jurisdiction.

One surprising source of rights cited by the IACHR was the 1994 North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the supplemental labor accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Under the NAALC, the U.S., Canada and Mexico agreed to promote 11 labor principles, including workplace safety; compensation for workplace injuries and illnesses; and protection of migrant workers.

NAFTA is the only U.S. free trade agreement that includes workers' compensation in its definition of labor law - though Canada continues to include workers' compensation in its FTA labor provisions.  In addition to requiring effective enforcement of labor laws, the NAALC contains cooperative mechanisms that could be used by member states to address the complications that arise in the case of cross-border workers' compensation and other labor cases involving immigrant workers.  Employers and insurers that shirk their obligation to injured workers transfer the cost not only to the injured worker herself, but to the health care system of her country of origin.

Currently, the U.S. NAFTA re-negotiation goals do not mention incorporation of workers' compensation or protection of migrant workers - but they should.  Labor provisions in FTAs contain mechanisms that can enhance member states' ability to protect human rights.   While imperfect, the NAALC and labor provisions in other FTAs provide a forum for public petitions and inter-governmental dialogue on important cross-border labor issues.  They have the as yet under-utilized potential to address the kinds of failures in justice administration immigrants encounter. NAFTA re-negotiators should remember that there is nothing more fundamental to a worker and our shared global economy than the integrity of her body and mind - and act accordingly to ensure that workers' compensation is included among the labor rights protected in any re-negotiated agreement.

Aspinwall's refreshing proposal for strengthened NAFTA labor and environmental institutions deserves serious consideration

Mark Aspinwall, author of the must-read 2013 book Side Effects: Mexican governance under NAFTA’s labor and environmental agreements, argues in his August 10, 2017 Forbes piece Learning From The Experience Of NAFTA Labor And Environmental Governance that NAFTA negotiators should create a neutral inter-governmental body to address labor issues under NAFTA similar to the currently existing North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

There are three key elements to Aspinwall's proposal, emphasizing the independence of any multi-lateral agency established.  One, the inter-governmental agency should have mechanisms to receive complaints from affected civil society groups in any member state.  Two, the inter-governmental agency should have authority to conduct independent fact-finding investigations and issue reports under specific rules.  Third - and most importantly, since this element is present in the current NAFTA environmental side agreement but not the labor side agreement - civil society should have a permanent role in the functioning of the inter-governmental agency.  Aspinwall highlights that civil society should be involved not only in forming priorities and work plans but in participating in compliance oversight of the new inter-governmental agency.

Aspinwall's proposal is compelling and his arguments should be given serious consideration.  He rightly points out that the government-to-government dispute mechanism established under the current NAFTA labor side agreement (and, it should be pointed out, every free trade agreement negotiated by the U.S. since) is problematic because of politics and the inevitable conflicts of interest that result from international and national political priorities.  On the one hand, a government may not want to pursue a particular issue because of its relationship with the other member state.  Similarly, a government may simply not have the interest or political will to pursue labor rights issues.

As Aspinwall points out, there was relatively strong interest under the Clinton administration from 1995 to 2000 to press Mexico on trade union and working women's rights.  This interest and related political will waned during the Bush II administration from 2001 to 2008 - causing a severe drop-off in the amount of interest on the part of Mexican trade unions and civil society in using the NAFTA labor side agreement (NAALC) as an advocacy tool.  Despite the increased political will of the Obama administration to act creatively and sometimes forcefully in response to complaints filed under labor chapters of free trade agreements, Mexican trade unions and civil society had already moved away from the NAALC.  Cross-border labor and civil society movements did not fade with the NAALC.  They simply moved to other venues where they felt their efforts were more likely to have an effect - including the OECD Guidelines for Multi-National Enterprises, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, multi-stakeholder initiatives, independent labor and human rights commissions, and the negotiating arena of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Much of the hard work of pressuring the Government of Mexico to implement meaningful labor justice reform occurred during the TPP negotiations.

Aspinwall's argument for an independent labor commission under NAFTA is refreshing because it may almost seem like a quaint, idealistic idea to those who have worked in NAFTA labor arena.  The sad fact is that the politics he so correctly highlights in his analysis of government-to-government dispute settlement can also infect and weaken inter-governmental institutions - as was the case with the now closed North American Commission for Labor Cooperation.  Convincing North American labor policy makers, trade unions, civil society, and employer groups that a new Commission for Labor Cooperation is a good idea - even an independent and publicly accountable Commission - will be a hard slog and will require overcoming deep layers of skepticism.

The example of the North American CEC's Joint Public Advisory Committee shows that the effort of bringing disparate groups together for genuine dialogue and community building can be worth it.  The idea of independent fact-finding and reports in response to labor issues raised under free trade agreements is particularly compelling given recent developments in the trade and labor arena in 2017.  Two developments that put U.S. trade and labor policy implementation into jeopardy are the recent U.S. loss to Guatemala in arbitration of Guatemala's labor violations under the CAFTA-DR and the recent change in presidential administrations.  While the current administration makes a public show of emphasizing enforcement of free trade labor provisions, its budget proposals make this all but impossible financially.

The problem is determining what entity will serve as the honest broker and neutral convener of the kind of genuine North American labor dialogue and institution building that Aspinwall proposes. The current administration seems like an unlikely convener.  As observed by Aspinwall, the current administration's NAFTA negotiation objectives for the environment will actually weaken the CEC by creating rules to guarantee domestic enforcement without independent review.  As I have pointed out elsewhere, the negotiation goals for labor are almost purely cosmetic and actually narrow the number of labor laws subject to sanctions.  Maybe the Wilson Center and the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Study can get the dialogue going.

U.S. negotiation objectives for New NAFTA: Labor no longer separate, but still unequal

This piece was simultaneously posted on the HuffPost.

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Publicly, American workers are the focus of the much-touted renegotiation of NAFTA announced by USTR in May. The first round of negotiations begins on August 16, 2017. USTR’s NAFTA negotiation objectives, released on July 17th, place the American worker front and center, observing that trade deficits and factory closures created by NAFTA have left American workers economically stranded. Such bold rhetoric might lead observers to believe that the administration’s negotiation objectives for labor provisions in NAFTA will be equally bold. Sadly, this is not the case.

NAFTA’s 1994 labor side agreement – the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation or NAALC – has been criticized for (1) inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms; (2) not including the core labor standards of Freedom of Association, Right to Collective Bargaining and Right to Strike in NAALC’s full panoply of dispute resolution mechanisms; (3) setting a benchmark for enforcement of existing national laws rather than international labor standards; and (4) failing to result in meaningful change in workers’ lives in North America.

Criticism of the NAALC and imperfect implementation and application by policy makers have obfuscated the agreement’s strengths. NAALC is the only international labor agreement that is fully binding and readily enforceable on the United States. Over 25% of NAALC petitions filed since 1995 have been filed with Mexico about ineffectual enforcement of labor laws in the United States. NAALC’s definition of labor law covers 11 labor principles and is arguably broader than the definition in subsequent U.S. FTAs. In addition to covering minimum wage standards, occupational safety and health and the core labor standards outlined in the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Rights at Work, NAALC covers compensation for workplace injuries and equal labor protection for migrant workers. Surprisingly, NAALC’s gender protections are stronger than those in CAFTA-DR, which does not extend its dispute resolution provisions to the elimination of workplace discrimination and guarantee of equal pay for women and men in Central America. Finally, NAALC’s public communication process allowing members of civil society to file petitions alleging a member state has failed to effectively enforce labor laws has been duplicated in every subsequent U.S. FTA since.

Labor advocates have criticized NAALC on the “Separate and Unequal” standard, arguing that workers are not afforded the same mechanisms and remedies afforded to businesses and other member states under NAFTA’s business-to-state and state-to-state international arbitration procedures. Instead, NAALC provides for a public petition process (leading to a public report and government discussions); the possibility of the establishment of an Evaluative Committee of Experts (ECE) to issue a neutral report analyzing subjects raised in petitions; and finally, the potential for international arbitration and limited trade sanctions.

Following the pattern of every U.S. FTA negotiated since the 2000 U.S.-Jordan FTA, USTR’s current proposal is that labor provisions will be benchmarked to international labor standards, brought into the core NAFTA text, and subject to the same government-to-government arbitration mechanisms as other NAFTA disputes. This may seem like an advancement intellectually. In practice, realization of the fantasy of using international trade arbitration to address issues raised under FTA labor provisions has left much to be desired. On June 26, 2017, it was announced that the U.S. lost to Guatemala in the very first international trade arbitration resulting from a petition arguing that Guatemala failed to comply with its labor obligations under CAFTA-DR. First filed in April 2008, the Guatemala CAFTA-DR labor petition took over 9 years to wend its way to this ignominious conclusion.

NAALC also suffers from the Separate and Unequal standard when it comes to treatment of different labor principles under its dispute resolution mechanisms. Not all 11 labor principles are subject to the fully panoply of dispute resolution under the NAALC. A NAALC arbitral panel can only be requested in the case of petitions relating to occupational safety and health, child labor or minimum wage standards.

This shortcoming is not addressed in USTR’s 2017 proposal. In its NAFTA renegotiation objectives, USTR vows to “[e]stablish rules that will ensure that NAFTA countries do not fail to effectively enforce their labor laws implementing internationally recognized core labor standards and acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health laws.” USTR’s proposal actually narrows the scope of dispute resolution under New NAFTA by not including child labor as one of the listed subjects eligible for international arbitration.

In fact, USTR’s NAFTA re-renegotiation objectives set a tougher standard for proving a violation of labor obligations in international arbitration than that set in the NAALC. Under NAALC, a case may be subject to arbitration if a member state’s failure to effectively enforce labor laws is “trade-related.” The proposed standard in the renegotiation objectives is failure to effectively enforce “through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction, in a manner affecting trade or investment between the parties.” This is similar to the standard set in CAFTA-DR – which turned out to be insurmountable for USTR in the CAFTA-DR Guatemala labor arbitration case - not to mention for trade unions, civil society groups and workers of limited means.

It is not just that USTR’s labor-related NAFTA renegotiation goals fail to address NAALC’s most obvious flaws, eliminate some of NAALC’s positive attributes and duplicate past labor-related trade negotiation objectives. New NAFTA will never address serious labor market policy failures by the U.S. and its North American neighbors to address job loss and economic decline that result not only from free trade but technological and economic change. New NAFTA is just Old NAFTA in new clothes.

Like it or not, the current administration must recognize that Zero Sum We Win-You Lose strategies will not heal what ails the American workforce. Negotiation of a New NAFTA that better serves America’s workers requires a truly bold approach, not regurgitation of the same old approaches. It should improve NAFTA’s labor standards and dispute resolution mechanisms and incorporate measures that empower Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to engage in serious regional employment policy development and human and physical infrastructure investment. It means that the U.S. must cooperate with Canada and Mexico to find ways to improve educational and labor market outcomes on both sides of both borders. It also means looking to bold ideas like those expressed in Stephen Zamora’s 2008 article A Proposed North American Regional Development Fund: The Next Phase of American Integration under NAFTA.

Some concrete proposals to improve the negotiation objectives for the New NAFTA include:

• Exploration of the idea of incorporating the Evaluative Committee of Experts process in the dispute resolution mechanism as an intermediate step on the way to arbitration in order to provide arbitrators with a common factual and labor standards basis for analyzing the facts in arbitral proceedings;
• Incorporation of the 2016 Trilateral M.O.U. Promoting Women’s Entrepreneurship and the Growth of Women-Owned Enterprises in North America into NAFTA’s text and expansion of the M.O.U. to promote women’s empowerment in the workplace and society as outlined in the 2012 US-Mexico M.O.U. on Women’s Economic Empowerment;
• Removal of the insurmountable standard of proving a country has failed to effectively enforce labor law “through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction, in a manner affecting trade or investment between the parties” from the New NAFTA negotiation proposal;
• Expansion of NAFTA’s dispute resolution and arbitral provisions to cover all labor standards covered by the definition of labor law, including: collective labor rights; the elimination of workplace discrimination and guarantee of equal pay for equal work for women and men; elimination of forced labor; and elimination of child labor;
• Explicit retention of compensation for workplace injuries in the list of labor laws covered by NAFTA;
• Strengthening of cooperative mechanisms in NAFTA to allow for the development of a North American Employment Policy and Jobs Strategy similar to the European Employment Strategy – including the participation of large and small employers, trade unions, women’s rights groups and other members of civil society;
• Retention of the labor principle requiring equal treatment for migrant workers; and
• Development of a North American Investment Fund to help employers and workers adapt to economic and labor market changes caused by free trade as well as technological and economic change.

Other proposals to consider that are currently outside the U.S. trade policy development framework include:

• Requirement that the U.S. conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) and Women’s Rights Impact Assessment (WRIA) of New NAFTA before it is implemented, in addition to the labor and environmental studies already required by Congress; and
• Incorporation of human rights and rule of law provisions in the New NAFTA.

These proposals do not even capture the kind of bold rethinking that needs to be done with respect to renegotiation of NAFTA. Clearly, the administration and we as a country and region are not “there” yet.

Oversold and under-delivered: The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Women's Economic Empowerment

This piece was simultaneously published on the Huffington Post.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership should not be ratified without meaningful provisions on Women's Economic Empowerment.

U.S. ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is up in the air due to opposition by both major party presidential candidates, a number of members of Congress and U.S. trade unions. If negotiations are to be reopened to address the public's concerns, one area that must be revisited and reopened for negotiation is that of Women's Economic Empowerment.

Women's Economic Empowerment was clearly a goal of the Obama Administration in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free trade area between countries on all sides of the Pacific including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. In April 2014, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman published a post on the USTR blog Tradewinds extolling the advantages free trade can have for women. Froman references a USTR strategic paper that highlights 4 areas in which the TPP would enhance women's economic empowerment - protecting vulnerable workers, increasing formal employment, promoting development and encouraging development.

It should come as no surprise that the Obama Administration would want to prioritize the empowerment of women in its international trade agenda. Women's Economic Empowerment and achieving gender equality are also global policy goals for the international community. Two critical gender-equality targets under the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are (1) ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere and (2) eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls everywhere in the public and private spheres. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a robust research and policy agenda in support of the achievement of gender equality - most notably exemplified by its May 2013 Recommendation on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship. Gender equality was a key agenda item for the 11th Summit for the Pacific Alliance (a regional integration project of TPP signatories Chile, Mexico and Peru as well as Colombia) held in Chile in June-July 2016. An OECD report on gender equality in the Pacific Alliance published in August 2016 emphasizes not only the need to create a supportive business environment for women entrepreneurs, but the damaging role unequal pay for women has on the economy and the importance quality childcare and early childhood education programs have both for working women and the overall wellbeing of a country's inhabitants.

When I first heard a rumor at a conference in Toronto in May 2014 that there would be provisions on Women's Economic Empowerment in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I envisioned an entire chapter dedicated to Women's Economic Empowerment on the same level as Labor (Chapter 19), Environment (Chapter 20) or Intellectual Property (Chapter 18) - something like the wide ranging 2012 U.S.-Mexico Memorandum of Understanding for the Promotion of Gender Equality, the Empowerment of Women and Women's Human Rights signed by then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Patricia Espinosa. The scope of cooperation in the 2012 MOU includes the strengthening of citizenship security (particularly for women and girls) and promotion of economic empowerment and opportunities, social development that supports women and increased access to justice for women.

An entire TPP chapter devoted to Women's Economic Empowerment would make history, putting women and issues facing working women and business owners at the center of U.S. trade policy.

The actual result in the TPP is a little more underwhelming. A February 2016 blog piece by former Acting Deputy USTR Wendy Cutler in The Hill highlights that the Women's Economic Empowerment text is tucked away in Article 23.4 of TPP Chapter 23: Development.

In fairness, inclusion of an entire FTA chapter devoted to development is new to U.S. trade policy. Article 23.1.1 of TPP Chapter 23 on Development affirms the parties' "commitment to promote and strengthen an open trade and investment environment that seeks to improve welfare, reduce poverty, raise living standards and create new employment opportunities in support of development." TPP's development chapter emphasizes the concept of Inclusive Growth, which it defines as "broad-based distribution of the benefits of economic growth through the expansion of business and industry, the creation of jobs, and the alleviation of poverty."

Inclusion of any text at all devoted to women's role in economic development is also new to U.S. trade policy. Article 23.4 extends the concept of inclusive growth to include women, In the first clause, the parties to the TPP recognize that enhancing opportunities for women contributes to economic development. This covers women as both workers and business owners.

The second clause of Article 23.4 commits the parties to the TPP "to consider [my emphasis] undertaking cooperative activities aimed at enhancing the ability of women, including workers and business owners, to fully access and benefit from the opportunities created by this Agreement." Examples of cooperative activities include developing women's leadership networks; identifying best practices related to workplace flexibility; helping women build their skills and capacity; and enhancing women's access to markets, technology and financing.

On the one hand, Article 23.4 creates an opening for international dialogue on women's economic empowerment in the context of the TPP. With the right leadership and attention, women's rights advocates within and outside government policy circles can do a lot even with this little text. Much more has been built on a smaller foundation.

On the other hand, the gender-based commitment in Article 23.4.1 is highly contingent - flimsy almost. The parties do not even commit to undertake cooperative activities to enhance opportunities for women - they commit to consider undertaking cooperative activities to enhance opportunities for women. Is that even a binding commitment? "We've considered it and decided it against it." Even if it were a binding commitment, Article 23.9 specifically excludes Chapter 23 on Development from TPP's dispute resolution mechanism.

Thus, no TPP chapter devoted to Women's Economic Empowerment. No strong statement about the importance of women in the global economy or in Trans-Pacific Partnership member states. No binding commitment to empower women economically or otherwise.

The lack of meaningful provisions on Women's Economic Empowerment and gender equality in the TPP is just another instance where the promise of a modern "21st Century" trade agreement did not materialize. The political head winds against the TPP create an opportunity for improvement, however, and women's advocates throughout the Trans-Pacific region should take this opportunity to make their voices heard. TPP should not be ratified without a fully enforceable chapter on Women's Economic Empowerment.

Trade unionists, employers, HR professionals, risk officers and anti-corruption activists should unite to end the protection contract system in Mexico

On September 22, 2015, eight multi-national clothing and sportswear companies - including Adidas, American Eagle, New Balance, Nike, Patagonia, Puma, PVH and The Walt Disney Company - sent a letter to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto calling on him to outlaw the practice of labor protection contracts in Mexican labor relations because the practice violates international labor norms.

As a practice that intersects the fields of labor rights, human resources management, corporate social responsibility and corporate compliance (including anti-bribery compliance), eradicating the protection contract system will require a multi-pronged, multi-sectoral approach.  Trade unions, worker rights activists and CSR advocates must appeal not only to international labor norms but also to anti-bribery laws and norms.  They must ally themselves with company risk officers, HR professionals and anti-corruption activists to rid Mexico of the invidious practice of protection contracts.

The problem of labor protection contracts in Mexico

Labor protection contracts are part of a decades old practice in Mexico whereby companies enter into "collective bargaining agreements" with individuals claiming to represent trade unions prior to the commencement of operations.  These so-called collective bargaining agreements are registered with state labor boards before employees are hired and without their inscription or agreement.  As outlined in the letter from the Brands to the President of Mexico and discussed in the press release issued by global union INDUSTRIALL, the International Labor Organization (ILO - a UN organization) found in 2012 that labor protection contracts violate international norms on Freedom of Association.  Frequently when workers unite to organize their own union in Mexico, they find that there is already a collective bargaining agreement in place which serves as an obstacle to organizing a truly representative trade union.  In March 2015, the Fair Labor Association published an issue brief on labor protection contracts to educate its constituency.

The link between labor protection contracts and risk of illegal bribery of government officials

Not only do labor protection contracts vitiate employment relationships and distort the collective bargaining process, however.  Surely labor protection contracts do not come for free.  Companies doing business in Mexico must ask themselves to whom are payments for labor protection contracts made, and where does the money end up?  Labor boards in Mexico - where all collective and individual labor disputes are mediated and adjudicated - are tripartite, meaning that they consist of a government representative, an employer representative and a trade union representative.  More frequently than not, the trade union representative sitting on the local labor board is a leader in the "official" trade union with which the company entered into a protection contract.  There is a high possibility that some or all the funds paid in consideration for the protection contract will end up in the pockets of the trade union representative acting in his or her official capacity as a government official on the labor board - creating risk of violating anti-bribery laws for the multi-national company doing business in Mexico.

Bribery of foreign government officials is prohibited by the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Canadian Corruption of Public Officials Act (CFPOA) and anti-bribery laws passed by every OECD member state (including Mexico) in compliance with the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.  To better understand the international anti-bribery framework, see this 2010 web resource produced by the Association of Corporate Counsel as well as this guide to the CFPOA produced on the Business Anti-Corruption Portal.  It should be highlighted that the Canadian government now has wider powers to take legal action against Canadian companies for violations of the CFPOA, as discussed in this April 22, 2014 article in the National Law Review.

Multi-national companies that subcontract work to manufacturers in Mexico may assert that their risk of violating foreign bribery laws is mitigated by the fact that they may not themselves enter into labor protection contracts or make payments to trade union officials sitting on labor boards.  Yet, as discussed in this October 2013 article in Bloomberg Law by FCPA experts on mitigating third party risk in anti-corruption compliance, companies can be held liable for bribes paid by third party agents and contractors.  Companies that invest directly in Mexico and participate directly in payments as a quid pro quo for a protection contract may find themselves in direct violation of anti-bribery laws and truthfulness in books and records requirements.

With the possibility of tens of millions of dollars in legal fees and fines, as well as the risk to reputation and company brand, is taking the risk that a subcontractor may be directly or indirectly paying bribes to government officials sitting on labor boards really worth it?

A path to a solution - partnering with the Mexican anti-corruption movement

Eradicating a protection contract system which has been embedded in HR practice and labor law administration in Mexico for decades will not be an easy task.  Worker rights activists and CSR advocates should not consider themselves alone in the struggle, however.

As discussed by Mauricio Merino Huerta in his June 2015 paper published by the Wilson Center Mexico:  The Fight Against Corruption, the anti-corruption movement in Mexico has been gaining strength in the wake of scandals and tragedies in the last few years.  Merino highlights the work of the Accountability Network, an alliance of a variety of academics and organizations dedicated to the eradication of public corruption in Mexico.  This network has had a number of successes - in particular the passage of national legislation by the Mexican Congress creating a National Anticorruption System that was signed into law on May 27, 2015 (Merino, p. 16).

Joining or partnering with the Accountability Network to raise the profile of the protection contract system in Mexico is just the first step to passing laws and implementing policies to eradicate protection contracts in Mexico.  Worker rights and CSR advocates should also pursue partnerships at the regional and international level.

The next stop should be the OECD itself, where INDUSTRIALL and other international trade unions and worker rights advocates can partner with the OECD's Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) and conscientious employers like the Brands that signed the letter to the President of Mexico can partner with the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC)  to table text explicitly prohibiting the practice of protection contracts with consequences for companies, manufacturers and employers alike.'

Don't be a rube!  Training of human resources professionals, financial auditors and CSR auditors is needed

It is critical - in fact an absolute necessity - that human resources practitioners both within and outside Mexico be sensitized to the risks protection contracts pose not only from an HR perspective but from a corporate compliance / anti-corruption perspective.  In Mexico, it may simply be that it has been "done this way" for so long that the practice is accepted without conscious thought.  For companies that subcontract or invest in Mexico, it may be simply a matter of HR managers being ignorant of human resources practice in Mexico and relying too heavily on their in-country counterparts.  Human resources management professionals cannot accept at face value assertions that making payments to an "official trade union" before ground has broken on the factory and employees have been hired "is just the way we do things in Mexico."

Two organizations that might be good partners for implementation of this type of training and sensitization program would be the North American Human Resource Management Association (NAHRMA) and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) which offers periodic Global Human Resources Management certification courses and recently established international membership fora outside the United States.  Organizations of financial and CSR auditors can also be partners in the fight to eradicate the protection contract from Mexico's labor relations system by developing methodologies for matching payments to trade unions with dues deducted from workers' pay - or not as the case may be.  The presence of payments to trade unions without matching deductions from workers' pay could be an indicator of the existence of a protection contract - or if union dues are deducted without workers' assent or knowledge.

The protection contract system in Mexico violates international labor norms, decreases the credibility of Mexican legal institutions empowered to enforce labor law, creates financial and compliance risk for international companies doing business in Mexico and diverts resources from the pockets of workers.  It is a relic of a bygone era that has no place in a transparent, modern Mexico.  It is time for everyone at the table to unite and bring an end to it.

Can free trade work for all? Canada throws down gauntlet as U.S. attempts to avoid labor obligations imposed on its trade partners

One of the purposes of the May 14, 2015 conference Working for All? New Ideas and Innovative Strategies to Enhance Economic and Social Benefits in Trade Agreements co-hosted by the GWU Elliott School and the International Labor Organization was to shake up Washington policy discussions about incorporation of labor, human rights and social welfare concepts in free trade agreements.

For me, remarks made by Pierre Bouchard (Director of Bilateral and Regional Labour Affairs, Canada) were the highlight of the conference.  Bouchard used the event to highlight a tricky negotiation point with the United States Trade Representative regarding labor provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership currently under negotiation.  While the U.S. has made strides in strengthening labor provisions in free trade agreements negotiated after NAFTA, in fact the U.S. has inserted a footnote in each of the post-NAFTA free trade agreements to make sure these broader FTA labor provisions do not apply to the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories like Puerto Rico.  This actually decreases the level of obligation the U.S. agreed to in the NAFTA labor side agreement (NAALC) which contains no such limitation.*  Canada, unlike recent U.S. trading partners like Peru, Singapore, Bahrain and the Central American nations, seems to have both the leverage and the willingness to press this point with USTR.  For U.S. labor rights advocates who have utilized the NAALC as a tool to press for improved labor law enforcement at the federal and state level, it is critical that the Government of Canada prevail on this point.  Hopefully other trading partners in the TPP support Canada in this endeavor if for no other reason than the U.S. should not impose international labor obligations on its trading partners that it is not willing to commit to itself.

Other remarks to highlight during the conference include:

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership eliminates labor law exemptions for Export Processing Zones in member states (Carol Pier, Deputy Undersecretary, International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor).
• Globalization and trade have traditionally been engines of inequality and their gains have not been broadly shared (Lance Compa, Senior Lecturer, Cornell University).  Compa also shared his experiences with the Fruit of the Loom labor rights framework in Honduras.
• Switzerland and China have negotiated a free trade agreement with labor provisions (Silvia Formentini, Trade and Sustainable Development, European Commission).
• Chile has negotiated free trade agreements with labor provisions with, in succession, Canada, the U.S., the EU, Japan and now China.  As a comparatively smaller country and economy, Chile must adopt different tactics with each of these trade partners (Pablo Lazo Grandi, Permanent Mission of Chile to UN in Geneva).
• Canada ratified the ILO Forced Labor Convention (No. 29) as a result of negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU (Pierre Bouchard).
• Freedom of Association has been seen as a barrier to the Right of Establishment and Investment in the EU (Tonia Novitz, University of Bristol.  For more information, see this 2010 European Parliament briefing note The Impact of the ECJ Judgments on Viking, Laval, Ruffert and Luxembourg on the Practice of Collective Bargaining and the Effectiveness of Social Action or Novitz's 2008 piece A Human Rights Analysis of the Viking and Laval Judgments). 
• The EU Employer Federation is in favor of ILO standards in the Transatlanltic Trade and Investment Partnership/TTIP (Thomas Zielke, Representative of German Interest and Trade).

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 * In fact, a number of NAALC complaints filed with Canada and Mexico allege ineffective labor law enforcement by  U.S. state authorities as well as federal authorities - particularly the Washington Apple, De Coster Egg Packing, New York Workers' Compensation cases (not to mention the North Carolina Public Workers case which is still pending with Canadian authorities).

New Book! NAFTA and the NAALC Twenty Years of North American Trade-Labour Linkage (2015)

The 20th anniversary edition of the NAFTA and NAALC monograph in the International Encyclopaedia of Laws, Labour Law and Industrial Relations by Lance Compa and Tequila Brooks provides an up-to-date retrospective on all of the citizen petitions filed under the NAFTA labour side agreement since 1994. The monograph includes early petitions filed about trade union rights at the Honeywell and Echlin plants in Mexico, the McDonald's case in Canada and the Washington Apple and DeCoster Egg cases in the United States as well as more recent petitions filed about migrant worker rights under the H-2A and H-2B visa programs in the US. In addition to being the most complete compilation of NAALC cases in existence today, NAFTA and the NAALC Twenty Years of North American Trade-Labour Linkage outlines the internal mechanics leading to the filing of a 2000 NAALC petition with the Government of Mexico about unequal treatment of migrant workers in the US, and describes changes in the treatment of petitions by US, Mexican and Canadian authorities over the last 20 years. It also contains a chapter that compares the NAALC to the OECD Guidelines for Multi-National Enterprises and highlights recent North American cases filed under the OECD Guidelines including the relatively lesser known 2004 Yucatan Markey Tex-Coco Tex petition which was dual filed under both mechanisms. Finally, the 20th edition introduces a new chapter that compares labour provisions in US and Canadian free trade agreements negotiated since 2000 and discusses recent labour petitions filed under the US-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and US free trade agreements with Bahrain and Peru.

February 2015, 200pp, softcover

ISBN: 9789041160102

To purchase a copy, find it at

• Kluwer Publishing: Compa & Brooks, NAFTA and the NAALC Twenty Years of North American Trade-Labour Linkage (2015)
• Amazon: Compa & Brooks, NAFTA and the NAALC Twenty Years of North American Trade-Labour Linkage (2015)