The AFL-CIO, the biggest U.S. labor federation, on Monday will file the first petition for the U.S. government to bring a labor complaint against Mexico under the trade deal that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, the union said.
The AFL-CIO’s petition, which it shared with Reuters, states that workers at the auto parts plant Tridonex in Matamoros, a Mexican city on the border with Texas, were denied independent union representation in violation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaced NAFTA last year.
Since the 1994 NAFTA, which had few enforcement tools for labor rules, wages in Mexico have stagnated and now rank as the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a club of 37 industrialized nations.
The USMCA was designed to change that by giving more power to workers to demand better salaries, which was also meant to prevent low labor costs from leeching more U.S. jobs.
Reuters reported last week that hundreds of workers had sought to be represented by a new union led by activist-attorney Susana Prieto since 2019, yet state labor officials never scheduled an election. Prieto said 600 of her supporters at Tridonex last year were fired, in what some workers described as retaliation for their efforts to switch unions.
Tridonex’s parent is Philadelphia-based Cardone Industries, which is controlled by Canadian company Brookfield Asset Management.
Under USMCA‘s “Rapid Response Mechanism,” firms in Mexico and the United States can face tariffs and other penalties for failing to ensure worker rights, such as freedom of association.
The AFL-CIO’s petition marks the first time the trade deal’s labor enforcement is being put to use, and will be closely watched by companies and labor activists.
“This is precedent-setting,” said Cathy Feingold, director of the international department of the AFL-CIO, which lobbied for better worker rights provisions in the USMCA. “It’s going to be a test for this new system.”
The AFL-CIO will send its petition to the U.S. Office of Trade and Labor Affairs, which has 30 days to review the claim and determine whether to bring the case to the Mexican government for further review.
Mexican labor officials would then work with U.S. counterparts to agree on terms of remediation. The entire process, including a final stage to determine potential sanctions and penalty fees, must be resolved within five months.
“Most of this could get fixed pretty quickly if the political will is there,” said Benjamin Davis, director of international affairs for the United Steelworkers, part of the AFL-CIO.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who signed a labor reform into law in 2019, has vowed do away with Mexico’s ubiquitous protection contracts that critics say put company interests over worker rights – also a priority of the USMCA.
Yet, the new law is being gradually rolled out throughout Mexico, and changes will not start to reach Tamaulipas state, home to Matamoros, until 2022.
Davis said Mexico still has an obligation to guarantee the reform is playing out on the ground.
“The rights start right away, even if institutions aren’t in place yet,” he said.
The petition was also backed by the Service Employees International Union, which represents Cardone employees in the United States, along with U.S. non-profit Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Prieto’s union, called SNITIS.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Leslie Adler)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
