NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
September 1, 2017 | PAGE 3
Six questions for organized labor’s top NAFTA expert
NAFTA is back in the spotlight 23
years after it became law. Donald
Trump pledged to withdraw from
it. Instead he’s seeking to renegoti-
ate it (in secret). The first round of
talks wrapped up Aug. 20. To find
out more, the Labor Press spoke
by phone Aug. 23 with the na-
tional AFL-CIO’s top trade policy
expert, Celeste Drake.
By Don McIntosh
What’s wrong with NAFTA,
from the AFL-CIO’s perspec-
tive? Where to begin? I think it’s
best summed up as the wrong set
of rules. NAFTA imposes on the
whole North American economy,
not just the U.S. economy, a set
of rules that benefit large global
corporations at the expense of
working people. In practice that
sets up a race to the bottom. It has
driven down wages. It has made
it harder for working people to or-
ganize and negotiate. It fails to
protect the environment. It says
that corporations have effective
and enforceable rules that protect
them, while the rest of us are left
with, at best, “guidelines” that fail
to protect us. And it includes the
odious “investor-to-state dispute
settlement” system (ISDS),
which provides private justice for
foreign investors and leaves
everybody else out.
How does that critique differ
from President Trump’s narra-
tive about NAFTA? From what
I can tell, he has not adopted our
analysis. Rather than looking at
the way the rules favor the largest
corporations across all three
countries, he seems to blame the
other countries and the workers in
the other countries. And he seems
to blame U.S. negotiators for not
doing a good job. That’s wrong.
As much as I disagree with what
the negotiators did, I think they
did what they were asked to do.
It wasn’t working people who de-
manded NAFTA. It was the big
corporations. To highlight where
the president’s analysis isn’t quite
right … if NAFTA was so great
for Mexico, if they were doing so
well under it, you would have the
working people of Mexico de-
fending it. But instead you saw
during the negotiations last week
a big march in Mexico City
where Mexican workers them-
selves were saying NAFTA is a
disaster. They fear that the rene-
gotiation will be used by corpo-
rations to make NAFTA even
worse.
What do we know about the
negotiations that have taken
place so far? Not a lot. The first
round concluded [Aug. 20]. It did
not really open up, in the way that
we have suggested, to public par-
ticipation, releasing documents to
Celeste Drake
Congress and the press. We know
that there were meetings on every
chapter, even though text wasn’t
put forth. We know Canada is go-
ing to be aggressive in looking for
a strong commitment on labor.
During the campaign, Trump
pledged to withdraw from
NAFTA altogether. Are you in
favor of withdrawal? We
strongly believe that the best way
to protect workers is through hav-
ing international agreements.
There’s no way we can be iso-
lated from the rest of the world.
So our first choice is replacing
NAFTA with a deal that really
raises the standards of living for
the workers of North America. If
that can’t be done, then certainly
withdrawal from NAFTA is an
option and would be an improve-
ment in a lot of ways from the sta-
tus quo, because the status quo is
driving a race to the bottom. If it
becomes clear that this is not in
fact an opportunity for working
people, and instead it’s going to
be another tool whereby corpora-
tions gain additional leverage to
push down our wages and work-
ing conditions, then we’ll get be-
hind a repeal NAFTA campaign.
But we have done so much work
over the last few years about fast
track and the TPP [Trans-Pacific
Partnership], that we have an ac-
tive and engaged electorate. We
don’t think Americans will just
take anybody’s word for it that
NAFTA is great again. Because
NAFTA never was great, and we
know what to look for to deter-
mine any claim of success about
whether NAFTA is getting better.
Does NAFTA have any role in
increasing undocumented mi-
gration to the United States?
Certainly. Right after the signing
of NAFTA there was a flood of
agricultural exports from the U.S.
to Mexico that really undercut a
lot of the smaller farmers. And
when they were no longer able to
compete with U.S. agricultural
products, the promised “good
manufacturing jobs” in the cities
just weren’t there. I’ve seen esti-
mates as low as 1 million and as
high as 3 million potential undoc-
umented immigrants as a direct
result of NAFTA, primarily from
pushing folks off the land.
Is NAFTA’s impact exagger-
ated by critics? Offshoring
manufacturing to Mexico was
happening already, and in fact
much more production has
moved to China, a country we
don’t have a NAFTA-style
agreement with. Is NAFTA
mainly a symbol for overall
trade policies that aren’t bene-
fiting working people? Some-
what. Both of those things you
said are true. However it’s easy to
defend the status quo by saying
NAFTA didn’t cause the manu-
facturing job losses, but its critics
generally don’t claim that it that
caused all of Americas manufac-
turing job losses. The bigger ef-
fect quite frankly is the wage im-
pact. We can document 850,000
job losses based on opportunity
costs lost because of the trade
deficit. But even more workers
than that recognize that it’s harder
to negotiate for better wages and
benefits now. And NAFTA has a
role in that. NAFTA was the first
trade agreement of its kind. And
you can trace a lot of the ideas of
the WTO from NAFTA. So if we
can get NAFTA to go ahead on a
different model, that sends a huge
signal that we need to start look-
ing at our other trade policies and
reforming them.
ON STRIKE: Union benefit administrators
Raymond Thomas
Cynthia Newton
Melissa Haggerty
James Coon
Chris Frost
Sydney Montanaro
If you are hurt
on the job, you
have the right to
choose your
doctor. Your
employer is not
allowed to
direct your
medical care.
820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200,
Portland, OR 97204
Scott Sell
Chris Thomas
www.tcnf.legal
Ninety-five union-represented
workers who administer health
and pension benefits for thou-
sands of Pacific Northwest
union members are on strike.
After 11 months of negotiations
and seven months without a
contract, members of Office and
Professional Employees Inter-
national Union (OPEIU) Local
8 who work at Welfare & Pen-
sion Administration Service,
Inc. (WPAS) in Mercer Island,
Washington, walked off the job
Aug. 23.
WPAS is a private for-profit
corporation. Employees there
have had a union contract since
1973 and last struck in 1988.
Workers are fighting to main-
tain seniority rights, cap the
medical premium cost share,
and reestablish their retirement
after losing their pension benefit
last year.
WPAS owners have contin-
ued to administer union benefits
with a skeleton staff that in-
cludes temporary scab workers.
Washington State Labor
Council is calling on supporters
to call WPAS owners and tell
them to settle a fair contract
now: 1-800-732-1121.