NAFTA – Nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced writes the AFL-CIO

Twenty years later and what have we learned from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? Nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced, union density in the United States, Mexico and Canada fell and income inequality has increased. The AFL-CIO’s new report, NAFTA at 20, discusses how current U.S. trade policy has failed to raise wages, improve social standards or address inequality—and what needs to change to ensure that future trade agreements actually work for working people.

NAFTA was sold to the public as a way to promote equitable growth, but as the report details, NAFTA-style trade deals benefit corporations at the expense of workers, farmers, consumers and communities.

Wages in all three countries are stagnant. Productivity has increased, but the share going to workers has decreased. Union density has declined and precarious work without stable hours or benefits is on the rise. The overall volume of trade between the three countries has undoubtedly grown, but those gains are concentrated at the top, not distributed across society. Instead, inequality has skyrocketed.

Flat wages and an eroding middle class did not happen by accident—they are the result of the NAFTA model, a model that deals with broad economic governance issues, including investment, intellectual property, consumer and environmental protections, labor rights—issues not inherently trade-related. NAFTA made it easier and less risky for companies to move operations where the cost of labor was cheapest but contained no effective mechanism to ensure labor rights or environmental protections were enforced.

The model’s deregulatory agenda limits government’s ability to act in the public interest. For example, procurement provisions prevent governments from including requirements that companies contribute to local development or respect fundamental human rights in contracts, limit equitable access to public services and raise the price of medicines through stringent intellectual property protections.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at What We Can Learn from the Trade Agreement that Shipped 700,000 U.S. Jobs Overseas.

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