LABOR'S RENEWAL?: With comments on cross-border solidarity
Cook, Maria Lorena
Even before NAFTA, the United Electrical Workers union (UE) and the Mexican Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT) fashioned a strategic organizing alliance targeting "runaway" General Electric plants...
...The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has developed close ties with the Sindicato de Telefonistas de la Republica Mexicana (STRM), the national telephone workers union of Mexico...
...The Teamsters union and the FAT undertook similar efforts at a Honeywell plant without the formality of a written agreement...
...On a broader scale, the Texas state AFL-CIO has formed a Border Solidarity Committee to work with Mexican unions in the border region...
...In one "twin plant" setting with unionized shops in Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, for example, the UNITE local collaborated with its Mexican counterpart to achieve key contract gains in both factories...
...Another case was filed by a coalition of four groups—the Washingtonbased International Labor Rights Fund, the Texas-based Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, the American Friends Service Committee Maquiladora Project, and the Mexican National Association of Democratic Lawyers—for a democratic union group in a Sony plant...
...As those involved know each other better, they find new ways to link their movements...
...Few of these efforts would have been undertaken outside the NAFTA context...
...Even before NAFTA, the United Electrical Workers union (UE) and the Mexican Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT) fashioned a strategic organizing alliance targeting "runaway" General Electric plants in the maquiladora region...
...All these steps required careful coordination to shape common positions...
...Mexican workers, union organizers and labor lawyers testified in public hearings in the U.S...
...and Mexican unionists were joined by leaders of the Canadian, German, and British telephone workers unions in the public forum inspired by the Sprint case under the NAALC...
...The UE, the Teamsters, and the CWA filed NAFTA labor cases with the U.S...
...The Mexican STRM filed the Sprint case complaint on behalf of workers being organized in California by the CWA...
...on the G.E., Honeywell, and Sony cases...
...Outside organized labor, a multitude of labor-allied nongovernmental organizations in the three countries have been conducting a series of trinational conferences, workshops, research projects, and other bridge-building efforts for the past five years to press for a strengthened social dimension in North American economic integration...
...Although it is not only the labor side agreement driving these actions, the NAALC creates a framework for concrete work—developing strategies, drafting submissions, planning testimony, mounting press conferences, setting up demonstrations, meeting with government officials, participating in the agreement's cooperative activities program and events that flow from ministerial consultations, and all the learning about each other's countries and labor movements that takes place in the process...
...Even now, trade unionists in the United States, Mexico, and Canada are examining potential new submissions under the NAALC...
...In 1995 FAT organizers helped the UE win an organizing victory at a large manufacturing plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a high complement of Mexican-American workers...
...and Mexican labor departments on union registration as part of the Sony case consultation...
...Mexican, U.S., and Canadian labor, democracy, and human rights advocates spoke out at public forums held by the U.S...
...MARIA LORENA COOK WINTER • /997 • 49...
...The International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, now joined in the new union UNITE, have carried out joint programs with unions in Mexico and Canada...
...National Administrative Office on behalf of Mexican workers involved in FAT and STRM organizing efforts...
...The assistance flows both ways...
Vol. 44 • January 1997 • No. 1
