Last week, something revolutionary happened in the history of U.S. trade policy. The government used trade law to help labor, not to help capital.
Government switching sides gives a whole new political meaning to globalization. Global trade, with the right politics and policies, doesn’t have to produce a race to the bottom. It can even start a race to the top. Who knew?
The specific case involved an auto parts company called Tridonex, located in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico. Tridonex is owned by a Philadelphia outfit called Cardone Industries—which in turn is owned by a Canadian hedge fund! Tridonex makes things like reconditioned used brakes. It sends most of its products to the U.S., and is a classic case of offshoring jobs to Mexico, as enabled by NAFTA.
But in 2019, the Democrats in Congress and Trump trade chief Robert Lighthizer rewrote NAFTA. The successor agreement, called USMCA, includes tough, enforceable labor rights provisions, guaranteeing workers in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada the right to organize and join unions free from harassment. - The American Prospect
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Something righteous happened re: trade and labor
It's been a long, long time coming, and hopefully there will be a lot more of it.
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Imagine going on strike for a wage of US$10.58 / hour and having your union NOT back it ?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like the situation at Tridonex where Matamoros Assembly and Maquiladora Workers Industrial Union (SITPME) did not back their demands for better pay. About 400 Tridonex workers protested outside a Matamoros labor court last year to be allowed to switch unions. But this article makes it sound like the workers are unlikely to get a new union.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/insight-in-mexico-autos-town-labor-rights-falter-despite-u.s.-trade-deal-2021-05-03
Kuttner did have some caveats in the article. I'm not implying that you are "grumpy left."
Delete"Note to my grumpy lefty friends: This kind of thing is why some of us are genuinely enthusiastic about the Biden administration, not because we are captured pushovers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been following all this very closely, and is mightily upset, having long been accustomed to USTR as a lapdog.
Granted, two cases do not a revolution make. The details of the Tridonex settlement were inadequate. But the battleship of U.S. trade policy has been turned in a different direction, and there will be many more cases. The government is at last playing trade hardball on the right side."
(Apparently Blogger doesn't allow blockquoting in comments.)