New challenges, new alliances: union politicization in a post-NAFTA era

Abstract

The ascendency of neoliberalism, anti-state ideologies, and increased corporate power has taken its toll on labor movements around the globe. Today, the proportion of unionized workers in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries is half what it was in the 1970s. I argue that unions are dealing with the crises presented by neoliberal economic integration by entering new political coalitions and nontraditional advocacy areas – particularly relating to immigration, environment, and trade – in an effort to increase their relevance, influence, and allies. I examine how the North American Free Trade Agreement helped politicize unions to move beyond traditional workplace-centered struggles and engage in broader and more diverse political struggles linked at the domestic and the transnational level. Union positions vis-à-vis immigrants have shifted dramatically from supporting draconian legislation to leading a broad-based movement for immigrants' rights. Key unions joined with environmental organizations to advocate for environmental and worker protections through a green economy and green jobs; unions continue their fair trade advocacy, fighting the Tran-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreements and investor–state enforcement mechanisms. In an interesting and important twist, unions' foray into these new arenas in part results directly from the privatization of governance practices, which has undermined democratic processes across the continent.

Keywords::

• international trade
• transnational labor movements
• North America
• alliance-building

Acknowledgments

I thank Roland Erne and Labor History reviewers and editors for their insightful and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. See http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf; http://www.epi.org/blog/nafta-twenty-years-disaster/.

^2. Corporate supporters and governments have rebranded the agreement the TTIP.

^3.Kay, NAFTA and the Politics; Kay, “Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance;” Kay, “Legal Transnationalism;” and Evans and Kay, “How Environmentalists ‘Greened’ Trade Policy.”

^4. See Bronfenbrenner, Global Unions and Caulfield, NAFTA and Labor.

^5.Kay, NAFTA and the Politics; Kay, “Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance;” and Kay, “Legal Transnationalism.”

^6. Unionization in the USA is now at rates not seen in over one hundred years and, as scholars such as Francisco Fernando Herrera Lima have argued, Mexican unions are now in their worst crisis since before the Mexican revolution, see Herrera Lima, “El Aislamiento Internacional.”

^7.Caulfield, NAFTA and Labor.

^8.Ozarow, “Pitching for Each Others' Team.”

^9.Erne, European Unions and McCallum, Global Unions.

^10. See note 3 above.

^11.McCallum, Global Unions, 159.

^12.Loomer, “Two Conceptions of Power.”

^13. These ideas come from Marshall Ganz's notes for his course “Practicing Democracy: Leadership, Community and Power,” 17 and Ganz “Leading Change.”

^14. Ganz, “Practicing Democracy,” course notes, 17.

^15. Ibid., 18.

^16. Although the impetus for many policy and strategy changes in the AFL-CIO began during NAFTA's negotiations in the early 1990s, John Sweeney's 1995 election as AFL-CIO president contributed to, and facilitated, those changes. Sweeney focused on organizing, brought in new staffers with activist backgrounds, reorganized the international department, and eliminated the controversial American Institute for Free Labor Development in 1997. Many Cold War era staffers were replaced or left the federation, undermining its Cold War strategy.

^17. The maquiladora program was designed to attract foreign investment and reduce unemployment, primarily along Mexico's northern border.

^18.Kay and Evans, Trade Battles.

^19.Howell and Wolff, “Introduction” and Preeg, Traders argue that trade policy becomes increasingly politicized as it moves from a focus on border regulation (through tariff policy) to greater emphasis on the integration of economies through capital mobility and changes in domestic law.

^20. See note 5 above.

^21. Labor leaders did not support this option. The AFL-CIO called for Clinton to renegotiate the agreement instead.

^22. The EEC/EU Treaties included mechanisms for the enforcement of labor laws since 1957. However, they did not create adjudicatory bodies dedicated solely to their enforcement, and they do not cover key basic labor rights. As Compa, “Labor Rights,” 2, explains:

Directives setting Europe-wide labor standards are few, and they cover less thorny issues like health and safety, parental leave, and employee ‘works councils’ entitled to information and consultation, but not to collective bargaining. Indeed, the Treaty of Amsterdam specifically excludes collective bargaining, union organizing and the right to strike from Europe-wide standard setting because these issues are so embedded in national institutions, histories, cultures and class struggles. No European country is willing to hand these over to supranational rule. Various European social charters broadly address labor rights and labor standards, most recently the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union adopted at a summit meeting in Nice in December 2000. But these have always been non-binding ‘side agreements’ to the EU treaty. They are important as guiding principles and a point of reference for EU institutions, but they do not yield enforceable rights.

^23. Interview with Pharis Harvey of ILRF, 2 March 2001. Interview conducted by co-author Rhonda Evans.

^24.https://www.globalpolicy.org/globalization/globalization-of-the-economy-2-1/multilateral-agreement-on-investment-2-5.html.

^25. For a critique of the MAI see Erne, Agathonos-Mähr, and Gauper, “Social Democracy.”

^26.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/19/trade-fracking_n_5340420.html.

^27.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/11/fast-track-trade-democrats_n_4580720.html.

^28.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/trans-pacific-partnership-ron-wyden_n_1540984.html.

^29. Interview with Tom Donahue of the AFL-CIO, 23 May 2001. Interview conducted by co-author Rhonda Evans.

^30. Interview with Mark Ritchie of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 11 June 2001. Interview conducted by co-author Rhonda Evans.

^31. See note 5 above.

^32. Ibid.

^33.Destler, American Trade Politics.

^34. Ibid., 269.

^35.https://www.citizen.org/documents/TRADEActFactSheet-HILL020210.pdf.

^36.http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/Recent-Trade-Agreements.

^37. Activists argued that lack of labor law enforcement was the primary problem in the area.

^38.http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/Colombia/Colombia.

^39. AFL-CIO Memorandum on “Ineffectiveness of Colombia's Labor Action Plan,” 4 October 2011.

^40.http://business.financialpost.com/2014/04/30/keystone-xl-nafta-challenge/?__lsa = 36dd-a6b4; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/time-for-keystones-nafta-option/article23232598/

^41.http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/What-Is-ISDS.

^42.http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/john-cavanagh-and-robin-broad/taking-on-the-trade-laws-of-the-1-percent.

^43. “Declaration of Joint Principles ETUC/AFL-CIO.” http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/132421/3553131/AFL-CIO+TTIP+Report_6+%282%29.pdf.

^44.http://www.euractiv.com/sections/trade-society/anti-ttip-demonstrations-seize-european-capitals-309119.

^45.http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/human-resources/organization.

^46. The same cannot be said for labor issues and the WTO, where there is ongoing debate about whether labor rights should be part of WTO mandates. The WTO presently states that there is consensus among members for the following labor rights: freedom of association, no forced labor, no child labor, and no discrimination at work. However, in 1996, members identified the ILO as the appropriate body to handle these issues.

^47.Evans and Kay, “How Environmentalists ‘Greened’ Trade Policy.”

^48.http://www.canadianlabour.ca/national/news/green-economy-network-denounces-bill-c-38-outlines-counter-plan-creating-climate-jobs. The bill ultimately passed in spring 2012.

^49.http://www.peoplesworld.org/good-jobs-green-jobs-the-only-way-forward/.

^50.http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/members/sierra-club.

^51.Kay, NAFTA and the Politics.

^52. The CTM, independent Mexican unions, and progressive U.S. and Canadian activists supported the inclusion of migration as part of the NAFTA negotiations. The AFL-CIO leadership balked and thereby squandered an opportunity to build transnationalism around immigration reform during the NAFTA negotiations.

^53.Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 535 U.S. 137 (2002).

^54.Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, __F3d__, No. 98-1570 (D.C. Cir. 16 January 2001).

^55.http://www.ueinternational.org/Vol7no4.html.

^56. See IACHR, Legal Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrant Workers, Consultative Opinion OC-18/03 (17 September 2003). The Court based its decision on non-discrimination and equal protection provisions of the Organization of American States (OAS) Charter, and it specifically bound all OAS members to abide by the decision even if they had not signed the conventions upon which it was based.

^57.Watts, Mexico-U.S. Migration, 28.

^58.Human Rights Watch, Blood, Sweat and Fear, 125. Also: See ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, Complaints against the Government of the United States presented by the AFL-CIO and the CTM, Case No. 2227: Report in which the committee requests to be kept informed of developments (20 November 2003).

^59.Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors. Various versions have been introduced since 2001.

^60.http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-16-Building-Enduring-Labor-Community-Partnerships.

^61. Ibid.

^62.Fligstein, Architecture of Markets, 5.

^63.McAdam and Scott, “Organizations and Social Movements,” 10.

^64.Evans and Kay, “How Environmentalists ‘Greened’ Trade Policy,” 973.

^65. For exceptions see Evans and Kay, “How Environmentalists ‘Greened’ Trade Policy” and Asad and Kay, “Theorizing the Relationship.”

Additional information

Funding

I thank the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters in Oslo for the funding of the research group “Globalization and the possibility of transnational actors – The case of trade unions.”

Notes on contributors

Tamara Kay

Tamara Kay is a professor in the sociology department at the University of New Mexico. Her work centers on the political and legal implications of regional economic integration, transnationalism, and global governance. She is interested in how organizations and social movements – particularly labor and environmental movements, and NGOs and nonprofits – respond and adapt to processes of regional economic integration and globalization. Her first book NAFTA and the Politics of Labor Transnationalism was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press.