Fighting to Fix the New NAFTA
From the AFL-CIO
For the better part of a generation, our global trading system has been rigged to enrich corporations at the expense of working people—and no deal has done more damage than NAFTA. We are hungry for a North American trade deal that lifts wages and improves livelihoods. The new NAFTA, also known as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), as proposed falls short, and that’s why America’s working families will keep fighting to fix it.
Here are three reasons why the labor movement opposes the new NAFTA:
- There is nothing in the current deal to fix the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs to Mexico and other low-wage countries. 851,000 U.S. jobs were lost already due to NAFTA.
- Unless Mexico finishes and implements full labor reform and stronger rules and enforcements are added to the NAFTA text, Mexico’s workers will continue to face wages as low as $2 per hour or less and receive no protection from threats and violence when trying to unionize.
- Monopoly rights for Big Pharma would keep drug prices sky high, and new rules would undermine protections such as workplace safety.
It is possible to have trade rules that lift wages and treat all countries fairly. But this deal, as it currently stands, falls short.
“Brothers and sisters, make no mistake, the coming days are a major test for the Trump administration. They must either step up for working people and produce labor rules and trade pacts that work or prepare to face the full fighting force of the North American labor movement!” —AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA), speaking to the United Steelworkers Canadian National Policy Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 2, 2019
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