21 Sep How Canada is Using NAFTA to Demand Protection for U.S. Workers
Finally, after nearly a quarter of a century, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is being renegotiated.
And while NAFTA negotiations have not progressed very far, and it is too early to say whether the effort will bring a New Economic Deal to working people or simply more crony capitalism, there was some fantastic, surprising, excellent news recently.
The Canadian negotiating team did something big: They told the U.S. negotiators that U.S. laws that interfere with people’s freedom to negotiate on the job are dragging down standards for Canada and need to be abolished. Guess what? Canada is right. Canadian negotiators are pushing the U.S. to do away with anti-labor policies like “right to work.”
The most infamous of these laws is referred to, bogusly, as right-to-work. Really, it’s right-to-bankrupt labor unions and right-to-cut workers’ pay. These laws forbid corporations and labor unions from negotiating collective bargaining agreements that require payments in lieu of dues from workers who choose not to join the union. These payments, which are typically less than full dues, cover the costs that unions incur to bargain contracts and pursue worker grievances.
Read more about Canadian negotiators efforts from Celeste Drake’s post on the AFL-CIO blog here.