Why organized labor was opposed to nafta

As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began telling their workers that their companies intended to move to Mexico unless the workers lowered the cost of their labor. In the midst of collective bargaining negotiations with unions, some companies would even start loading machinery into trucks that they said were bound for Mexico.

The same threats were used to fight union organizing efforts. Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U. This put further downward pressure on U. Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor.

The U. In each case, the U. In terms of U. A decade later, his Republican successor, George H. Bush negotiated the final agreement with Mexico and Canada. But the Democrats who controlled the Congress would not approve the agreement. And when Democrat Bill Clinton was elected in , it was widely assumed that the political pendulum would swing back from the right, and that therefore NAFTA would never pass.

Moreover, it paved the way for the rest of the neoliberal agenda in the US—the privatization of public services, the regulation of finance, and the destruction of the independent trade union movement. Wages and benefits have fallen behind worker productivity in all three countries.

Moreover, despite declining wages in the United States, the gap between the typical American and typical Mexican worker in manufacturing remains the same. Here in North America there are two alternative political strategies for change. Fast-track authority had been routinely granted by Congress to presidents in past major trade negotiations, including Nafta. Now, with Republicans in control of Congress, chances might seem to be stronger for free-trade legislation.

Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, a rising voice in the party and usually a close ally of the president, is among the skeptics. Free-trade proponents and opponents cite different sets of figures to bolster their rival claims. Unions oppose free trade deal 20 years after losing battle to stop Nafta.

The trade negotiations have magnified existing business-labor differences. Teamsters president James Hoffa warns of looming US job losses.