Here’s What a Better NAFTA Looks Like

CWA President Chris Shelton authored an op-ed that appeared in the Las Vegas Sun on what the Trump administration needs to do in order to renegotiate NAFTA to help working people:

It's hard to see where the Trump administration's renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement is going, but we do know what a "good" trade deal, one that benefits working people and their communities, should look like.

For millions of working families, NAFTA has meant lost jobs, closed factories and call centers, and lower wages, with most unable to find jobs that provide similar levels of pay and benefits. For communities, it's meant a loss of important public services and cuts in education and other programs as employers abandon cities and towns to relocate out of the country.

Right now, rather than proposing strong labor and environmental provisions that would actually raise wages and standards for workers in all three countries, the U.S. plan includes the same failed labor and environmental provisions included in the rejected Trans-Pacific Partnership and other deals. That means that labor violations — like wage theft, excessive forced overtime and even child labor violations — can't be addressed unless they are both "sustained and recurring" and committed "in a manner affecting trade," an impossible standard to meet.

Here's what a better NAFTA looks like.