NAFTA hearings start with Democratic lawmakers urging strong labor rules

Source: Reuters

Tue Jun 27, 2017 | 3:20pm EDT


By David Lawder | WASHINGTON

Two Democratic congressmen on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to demand strong labor provisions in its renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement to reverse chronic wage erosion in Mexico.

At a public hearing in Washington tied to the imminent trade talks, U.S. representatives Sander Levin and Bill Pascrell, both members of the House Ways and Means Committee, said improved labor rights in Mexico was their top NAFTA priority.

"U.S. wages are being driven down by the depressed wages in Mexico," Levin said in testimony. "Why? Because the entire Mexican labor system is designed to prevent workers from obtaining their rights and bargaining for better wages and working conditions."

Levin, citing a wage figure of about $2 an hour for Mexican auto plant workers versus about $28 for the United States, said that NAFTA must be modernized to ensure that Mexican workers have a true right to collective bargaining, replacing the current Mexican system of labor conciliation and arbitration boards. Negotiated in the early 1990s by the United States, Canada and Mexico, NAFTA lacks enforceable labor provisions.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-nafta-idUSKBN19I2NJ