In the Shadow of NAFTA: A Budding Cross-Border Resistance
Rosen, Fred
Despite its lack of teeth, the complaint mechanism established by the NAFTA labor side agreements provides a useful framework for the development of some creative cross-border organizing. This...
...The conflict involves the attempts of a small group of workers to gain a contract at a small plant called Acme Die Casting...
...unions begin working with, relying on and trusting one another, the groundwork is laid for fruitful cross-border activity...
...This kind of international labor solidarity is not new, she adds, "but in the past it has taken place around a specific event, like a strike or a particular e UE local which is struggling for Casting in Chicago...
...The company's 140 full-time workers are almost all Mexican-Americans who live in Chicago...
...Dana, the Ohio-based auto-parts manufacturer that took over the Echlin Company last year, employs over 79,000 workers in 270 plants worldwide, and its sales last year were just under $12 billion...
...In February the UE went to the Lucent stockholders meeting and its representatives were allowed to speak...
...We just want a contract, so why don't you sign it...
...Its NAO complaint, though it has brought no immediate results, has bolstered its resolve...
...Sprint just a week before a union representation election called by the Communication Workers of America (CWA...
...And that brings us back to Mexico...
...But the company won't talk to us...
...Last year," says Davis, "the UE decided to intensify our efforts to get them a contract...
...The structures established by the side agreements have no enforcement power whatever...
...And Telmex, their biggest customer, is organized by the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM), the union that brought the NAFTA side-agreement complaint in 1995 on behalf of the CWA...
...Stop them," Valenzuela remembers him saying, "before they destroy us...
...Last December, a ten-union, trinational alliance then called the Echlin Workers Alliance--now called the Dana Workers Alliance following a mid-summer corporate takeover-filed a complaint under those same side agreements, alleging the "violation of workers' associational rights"-i.e...
...Yes I'd like to fight for the union, but I need my job,' the workers would say...
...So even though Mexican labor officials supported the STRM complaint against Sprint, all they could do was mandate hearings in Washington, D. C. The U.S...
...They decided to These cases o approach Lucent, which is solidarity ten known to have a considerably smoother approach to labor of two thing relations than Acme...
...But organizers have begun to transcend national borders-thanks in part to the simultaneous internationalization of production and migration of workers, which is creating the natural basis for a cross-border labor movement...
...It has 12,000 employees in the country, many in joint ventures with Philips Consumer Communications in border maquiladoras...
...union busting-as well as the right to a safe and healthy workplace in one of the Echlin Corporation's Mexico City auto-parts plants...
...The President of Acme's parent company, Lovejoy Industries, called all the employees into the cafeteria minutes after the fax came and told them the UE was trying to take away their jobs and close the plant...
...In an interesting, if not-yet victorious case, the UE tried to tap into this North American solidarity last year to resolve an 11year-old conflict just outside of Chicago...
...fSouth-North The idea was to have the to have one STRM put pressure on Telmex, so that Telmex in common: (prodded also by pro-labor Mexican politicians) would that have put pressure on Lucent, so or workers that Lucent (prodded also by its own union) would put oved north...
...We went to the UE in 1987 and finally we won a representation election...
...They have won contracts with virtually every Mexican long-distance provider...
...Despite its lack of teeth, the NAO mechanism has provided a useful framework for a budding set of cross-border alliances...
...you can get ahead without a union,' they tell them...
...Even though they don't have a contract and can't really function as a union," says organizer Davis, "they went on strike for a couple of weeks in September but still couldn't get a contract...
...We have been trying to organize a union since 1980 but in the early days we lost three straight union elections...
...organizing drive...
...The STRM was willing, but in the end, there were just too many steps, and the strategy got a little too intricate to pay off...
...The ten unions in the Alliance-the United Electrical Workers (UE), the Teamsters, UNITE, the United Paperworkers, the U.S...
...At this point the contract is almost completely negotiated because we were willing to settle for the minimum, but not for the pay cuts...
...The workers needed their jobs and were basically afraid to be singled out...
...NAO ruled in favor of the Dana Alliance, ordering cabinetlevel consultations to remedy the situation, the called-for consultations between the U.S...
...The U.S...
...The company agreed to fax the union's organizing leaflet to Acme for comments...
...and Canadian United Steelworkers, the United Autoworkers (UAW), the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), the Machinists (IAM) and Mexico's FAT-represent Dana workers in the United States, Mexico and Canada...
...hile labor's situation remains bleak throughout the Americas, this growing cross-border cooperation is encouraging, at least to some organizers...
...I have worked here for 27 years," says Valenzuela, a husky, middle-aged man who came to Chicago from central Mexico nearly 30 years ago...
...The episode nonetheless points to future strategic alliances and cross-border strategies...
...I was the first Mexican in the plant...
...After two weeks some people became so discouraged that the N3NIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 38REPORT ON LABOR group decided to go in together rather than drift in one at a time...
...The Alliance consists of unions in different industries and Jorge Valenzuela, leader of thi a decent contract at Acme Die three different countries, all representing the same firm...
...They take people aside and offer them supervisory jobs or more overtime or white collars instead of blue collars...
...They provided switches and optic-fiber cable for the principal Mexican phone company, Telmex, and digitized the entire Telmex grid in early 1997...
...As Mexican and U.S...
...Many unions are clearly beginning to think of the ways in which concrete mutual aid can flow across borders...
...They have kept their organization intact, and they continue to struggle for union recognition...
...As jobs and workers continue crossing borders, so do union organizing efforts...
...The UNT-FAT complaint came three years after the first use of the side-agreement mechanisms by a Mexican union...
...That's fear...
...The complaint also challenged the way union-representation elections are held in Mexico, since workers VoL XXXII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 37REPORT ON LABOR in the Echlin plant in question had to cast voice votes in a deliberately intimidating atmosphere controlled by the company...
...Then they refused to put anything on the table that wasn't a pay cut...
...Acme refused to recognize the election even though the union won it two to one," says UE organizer Terry Davis...
...The complaint was brought before the NAFTA administrative office in Mexico City, and was timed to support ongoing organizing drives by the Teamsters and United Farmworkers (UFW) in the orchards and packing houses of Washington...
...We were fighting for rights, benefits, respect, but the company was fighting for money...
...An administrative office--called the National Administrative Office (NAO) in the United States--was established in each NAFTA country to hear complaints of labor-law violations in any of the other member countries...
...government under the terms of the labor side agreements to NAFTA...
...But in the face of cooptation and intimidation, Acme workers have not given up the fight...
...And that seemed to be more powerful...
...The complaint alleged that the federal government was not enforcing minimally required levels of health care and wages among Mexican and Mexican-American apple-industry workers in the state of Washington...
...They didn't even sit down to negotiate it for three years while they appealed the election...
...National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) also ruled in favor of the workers, but the ruling was overturned by a U.S...
...District Court in Washington, and none of the workers were rehired...
...The union realized that about 60% of the company's output goes to a single customer, an ex-Baby Bell telecommunications giant called Lucent Technologies...
...The UE had won a representation election there in 1987, but the company has yet to sign a contract...
...Lucent, which grew out of the prestigious research institution, Bell Labs, does a great deal of business in Mexico...
...pressure on Acme...
...As with the Sprint operators, even though the U.S...
...The Acme people have been unavailable for conversation," says Davis, "so we decided to raise this issue with their main client, Lucent...
...The UE's Davis travelled to Mexico City last winter to meet with some of her Mexican counterparts, including officials from the telephone workers union...
...The group, which came together in March 1997 to provide mutual support to its members in contract negotiations and in new organizing, promises to confront Dana with a stronger, more united labor movement in all three NAFTA countries...
...These cases of South-North solidarity tend to have one of two things in common: companies that have moved south or workers who have moved north...
...Arguing that Lucent should take responsibility for its suppliers under its announced policy of "social responsibility," the union prodded Lucent management to take some action...
...union, this time the CWA...
...That complaint was also timed to bolster the organizing drive of a U.S...
...Solidarity is not easy to come by in the midst of what Carlos Vilas refers to in this issue as "the war of all against all for a job," nor is there any support in the offing from the structures put in place by NAFTA...
...Secretary of Labor and the Mexican Minister of Labor have yet to take place...
...The company has tried to buy us out one by one," says the president of the local, Jorge Valenzuela...
...The company, which is very pro- companie tective of its highbrow image, moved sout highlights "social responsibility" on its Web page and who have n gives large foundation grants to community college pro- grams which retrain and reskill workers for high-tech industries...
...bilingual telephone operators, many of whom were Mexican-Americans, who had been abruptly fired by U.S...
...As a three-country alliance, one of our goals is to prevent the company from pitting us against one another," says Mary McGinn, a UE organizer who coordinates the trade-union coalition...
...In 1995, the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM) brought a complaint on behalf of 235 Fred Rosen is co-editor of NACLA Report on the Americas...
...This past May, two independent Mexican labor federations, the National Workers Union (UNT) and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) jointly brought a complaint against the U.S...
...unions at Lucent, the CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) agreed to cooperate with the UE on the Acme case and approached Lucent management who promised to f Is S s n "look into it...
...This, on the other hand, is an ongoing alliance to strengthen all of our hands at the bargaining table and in organizing the company's workers in all three countries...
...We are now committed to supporting our Mexican partner, the FAT...
...See, you don't need a union...
...The Dana Alliance, for example, has made creative use of the NAFTA side agreements to build its own organizing agenda...
...Valenzuela, the local leader, stood up and responded, saying: "We are not trying to bring down the company...
Vol. 32 • January 1999 • No. 4
