After NAFTA: 0a new abolitionism

...Indeed, the central issue of labor-law reform is a direct extension of the animating themes of those movements—namely, whether an employment system ought to be based upon the notion that a person or persons can have a property right in another...

...Lastly, there is the question of the kind of political movement to which opposition to NAFTA has given rise...

...Nothing else will work...

...In such circumstances, the movement for reform could easily take a nasty turn to the right, with potentially disastrous results...

...For nearly twenty years now, trade unionists and other working people have borne the brunt of an industrial restructuring accompanied by the destruction of millions of jobs, a continuing decline in real hourly earnings for nonsupervisory employees, an acrosstheboard assault on traditional work practices and contractual protections, more temporary and part-time employment, increased responsibility without any significant increase in control, longer hours, rising insecurity, and a precipitous drop in trade-union membership...

...The need, however, is great...

...Some proposed a "social tariff" to help encourage such linkages...

...Nationalistic trade policies like those championed by NAFTA's opponents, including the AFL-CIO, are counterproductive...

...and recent immigrants with close ties to the countries being "protected" against from those with other backgrounds and connections...

...To succeed, of course, the campaign would have to go beyond simply lobbying Congress...

...Government regulation is not the only way to raise wages and control work...

...I don't mean to be a doomsayer, but I do think there is cause for concern...

...But it may still be possible to channel some of the rank-and-file outrage unleashed by the debate over NAFTA into a campaign that calls for such changes...

...It seems to me, however, that this argument mistook a possible means (government regulation) for an end (raising wages and giving workers everywhere meaningful control over their working conditions...

...They simply opposed the particular SPRING • 1994 • 261 After NAFTA version of it that emerged from the "fast track...

...NAFTA, they argued, was misnamed...

...Moreover, the backroom, closed-door nature of the debate added fuel to the fire...

...It was really NAFIA —the North American Free Investment Agreement, which would give corporations an expanded license to exploit Mexican workers without increasing their power to organize against such exploitation...

...The readers of this journal were no doubt dismayed to see Ross Perot successfully install himself as the leader of the crusade against NAFTA...

...Finally they had a chance to declare themselves in opposition—not just singly or plant by plant, but all together and all at once...

...Trade policy is an important tool in the effort to raise international labor standards, but it is not the most important tool for that end...

...In my opinion, there were three problems with this approach...

...And doing so without providing for those who lose out in the restructuring process—for example, by expanding the movement for a "Superfund for Workers" modeled on the GI Bill of Rights passed after World War II, would impose onerous cuts on those who can least afford it...

...A "free investment regime" has the opposite effect, however, and in this respect, again, NAFTA, at least in the long run, may have done more to help labor's cause—especially in Mexico but also in the United States and Canada—than to hurt it...

...And, finally, it gave aid and comfort to those who prefer that the United States adopt a posture of defensive nationalism rather than of tolerant internationalism...

...There isn't space here to deal with these objections in great detail...

...Each, however, deserves a bit more comment...

...But these reservations only make the kind of a crusade I called for above all the more important...

...Because of the "fast-track" rules under which the agreement was negotiated and voted upon, the labor movement—together with the rest of the public —was given only the narrowest slip of ground from which to influence its provisions or mobilize against it...

...Of course, doing so without also simultaneously making it possible for Mexican workers—and workers in the United States—to organize themselves will delay the desired effects...

...Some NAFTA opponents also argued that at stake in the debate was the principle of whether or not society had a right to regulate the profit motive...

...In the end, labor's campaign against NAFTA may actually have set back rather than pushed forward efforts to create the political and institutional conditions for a new social contract that would protect the living standards and working conditions of wage earners throughout the expanding global economy...

...The agreement's chief critics were not opposed to free trade in general, which they allowed ought to be a cornerstone of the new international economy...

...Government regulation has always functioned more effectively to take profits, and not wages, "out of competition" — which is not all that surprising when you think about the balance of power Richard Rothstein between capital and labor...

...And Canada's experience after implementation of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA)—including the disappearance of one out of every four manufacturing jobs—seemed to offer a sober warning of what lay in store...

...Moreover, they not only drive an emotional and political wedge between working people in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but they also divide workers within the United States—especially those in importvulnerable industries , from those in exportcompetitive industries...

...Some of NAFTA's opponents argued that corporate investment should be permitted in Mexico only if workers there were paid and treated the same as they are in the United States...

...As a result, when the AFL-CIO, along with others, drew a line in the sand and pulled out all the stops to block NAFTA's approval, working people across the country stood and cheered...

...Unlike the countless, supposedly "private" corporate decisions that have played the greatest part in the ongoing restructuring, NAFTA required legislation—which could be blocked...

...An outraged rank and file will want to do more than simply write their representatives, and galvanizing them will probably require a little strategic civil disobedience— which under the terms of the old social contract labor agreed to shun...

...But it is worth reflecting on the fact that the other opponents of NAFTA—such as the labor, environmental, and consumer movements—were not able to do the silencing themselves...

...Here, at last, was a chance to shout "No...

...They do nothing to reverse the economic restructuring that has already occurred and little to prevent further restructuring from occurring in the future...

...This argument ignores the historical fact that increased wages and improved working conditions are an effect and not a cause of increased investment...

...And the issues at stake are every bit as compelling as those that inspired both the abolitionists of the nineteenth century and the civil rights protests of the twentieth...

...those in the South and West from those in the North and East...

...After NAFTA cause, at least over the long run...

...Just as capital benefits when labor competes with itself, labor benefits when capital competes with itself...

...First, it ignored the limitations of trade policy as a vehicle either for raising labor standards in other countries or for protecting them in this country...

...Or perhaps NAUTA —the North American Unfair Trade Agreement, which would enhance the ability of corporations to whipsaw workers in the United States, threatening them with layoffs and plant closures unless they agreed to further concessions, without providing any guarantees that those who benefited from such concessions would be held responsible for the costs inflicted by them...

...Women's Bureau, 1994...

...NAFTA's opponents, of course, saw their opposition to the accord as the precondition for any such "new social contract...

...Unfortunately, NAFTA was the wrong place to draw the line...

...If we are to help Mexican workers raise their wages and improve their working conditions we have to encourage more investment in Mexico...

...The slogan of the AFL-CIO expressed the prevailing sentiment: "Not this NAFTA...

...Labor's recent, unsuccessful campaign against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tapped a deep well of rank-andfile anger and frustration...

...Restoring to workers and their organizations the power to police labor standards themselves, both domestically and internationally—by repealing the prohibitions against recognitional picketing, "hot cargo" agreements, subcontract clauses, secondary boycotts, sympathy strikes, and other instruments of labor solidarity— would do more to advance the struggle than 262 • DISSENT any other single action.* Labor may well have missed a historic opportunity to give up its opposition to NAFTA in return for support from the Clinton administration for meaningful labor-law reform—by which I mean reform that would give to labor the power to organize itself and to act on its own behalf...

...Second, there is the problem of investment...

...And they also no doubt hope that the debate with Al Gore quieted the "giant sucking sound of the South," at least for a while...

...The proposed agreement among the United States, Canada, and Mexico provided a convenient and obvious target for outrage...

...Indeed, they all came perilously close to being Perot's water carriers, and the Texan continues to enjoy considerable support among rank-and-file workers disenchanted with politics as usual...

...Second, it confused the problem of how to raise labor standards in other countries and how to protect them in this country with the problem of how to control corporate investment and make it "politically accountable" and "socially responsible...

...SPRING • 1994 • 263...

...A new abolitionism, anyone...

...If a line is to be drawn in the sand, that is where it should be drawn...

...From that perspective, NAFTA should do more to help than to hurt the * For a longer discussion of the importance of such changes from a slightly different angle, see Dorothy Sue Cobble, "Making Post-Industrial Unionism Possible" (U.S...

...We need to find something other than nationalistic trade policies to mobilize the rank and file...