The U.S. “Worker-Centered Trade Policy” is helping some workers in Mexico but not in America
This Labor Day post seeks to shed light on the Biden administration’s “worker-centered” trade policy. It argues that the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) misses a critical opportunity to strengthen workers’ rights in America. The agreement’s provisions exclude protections for the most vulnerable workers in U.S. trade sectors and they erroneously protect employers in the U.S. transportation sector. This post urges amendments to the USMCA to protect workers – not just their employers – under a worker-centered trade policy.On August 30, as workers in Europe began to emerge from well-deserved August slumber and workers in America began to look forward to an extra day of rest in celebration of workers’ historic achievements, the Biden administration announced it was seeking a review under the USMCA’s Labor Rapid Response Mechanism (LRRM) concerning the rights of pilots at a Mexico-based airline. President Biden claims that workers’ fundamental rights represent the heart, or center, of its domestic and foreign policies. Although the USMCA is a Trump-negotiated trade agreement, current U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was influential in pushing for the labor provisions in her previous position as chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee. The Biden administration’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has invoked the LLRM numerous times to ensure respect for fundamental collective bargaining and associational rights in private facilities in Mexico. Recently, it initiated the first formal panel to litigate those rights. My work points out myriad ways the administration’s worker-centered trade policy risks undermining rather than fortifying workers’ rights abroad. It traces how that policy deprives foreign actors of fundamental due process rights in the name of fundamental labor rights and leaves workers vulnerable to retaliation. On this Labor Day, I shift the focus to workers in the United States.A well-known story by now, the USMCA resulted from fierce bargaining between the President, his executive office, and a Democrat-controlled Congress. Somewhat less known is that, at the midnight hour, as pens hovered in Mexico, Canada, and the United States to put to bed an emotional and lengthy NAFTA renegotiations process, the U.S. administration advanced an amendment quietly nestled in the form of a footnote to an Annex. It has received little attention.That footnote, in Annex 31-A of the USMCA’s Dispute Settlement Chapter, narrows the scope of applicable U.S. facilities subject to enforcement of collective bargaining and freedom of association rights in the United States. It reads as follows:With respect to the United States, a claim can be brought only with respect to an alleged Denial of Rights owed to workers at a covered facility under an enforced order of the National Labor Relations Board.To the uninitiated, that footnote looks innocuous. In theory, domestic legal processes should be exhausted before international mechanisms weigh in. Otherwise, one risks inconsistent findings, fragmentation, and interference with national juridical decisions. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is the U.S. federal agency that administers federal labor law in private facilities. Its findings are not self-executing and thus are not legally final unless and until a Court of Appeals enforces them. Although the expression “enforced order of the National Labor Relations Board” is not defined under U.S. labor statutes, the footnote’s intention to ensure legal finality at the national level before opening the door to international intervention appears relatively straightforward.Nevertheless, until the powers-that-be delete this footnote, workers in America will lack the same fundamental rights protections that USTR provides workers in Mexico. Below, I offer three reasons.
- The footnote leaves millions of workers in trade sectors in the U.S. without hope of labor improvements
- The footnote imposes significant remediation delays
- Not all workers in the United States fall under the National Labor Relations Act