Rally for Workers’ Rights in the new NAFTA

October 17, 2017

MEDIA ADVISORY

When: Noon (12 pm) Friday, October 20, 2017
Where: Outside the Mexican Consulate, 204 S. Ashland Ave.

Labor leaders and supporters from civil society organizations from Mexico, Canada, and the United States will gather outside the Mexican Consulate Friday to draw attention to the Mexican government’s failure to protect the rights of their own workers during the ongoing negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Led by representatives from several independent Mexican labor organizations, the group will demand a voice for working people across the continent.

“Twenty-three years of economic devastation under NAFTA are enough,” said Julia Quinones, Coordinator of the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, an organization advocating for the rights of workers in maquiladoras on the US-Mexico border. “It is time to implement a new economic model that benefits the welfare of workers with full respect for human and labor rights.”

Participants in the rally will call for:

  • Reducing wage disparities by increasing the Mexican minimum wage, which will improve the standard of living for workers in Mexico and also make it less profitable for companies to move jobs from Canada and the United States to Mexico;
  • Including measures in the trade agreement to protect workers' rights by removing barriers to unionization in all three countries;
  • Ending protections for corporations, like the Investor State Dispute Settlement.

For background information, contact:

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado (for inquiries in Spanish and English): (310)402-6553, gaspar.rivera.salgado@gmail.com

The event is part of a two-day gathering of organizations discussing next steps in organized labor’s response to the NAFTA negotiations. Organizations in attendance include:

AFL-CIO Solidarity Center
Alianza Americas
Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Canadian Union of Public Employees
Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical
Chicago and Midwest Joint Board of Workers United, SEIU
Chicago Jobs with Justice
Chicago Teachers Union
Citizens Trade Campaign
Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s
Common Frontiers
Communications Workers of America District 4
Community to Community
Council of Canadians
Familias Unidas por la Justicia
Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec
Frente Autentico de Trabajadores
Institute for Policy Studies
Justice for Migrant Workers
National Nurses United
National Union of Public and General Employees, Canada
Public Citizen
Public Service Alliance of Canada
Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-NYC
SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas
Sierra Club
Sindicato de Telefonistas
Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas
Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Jornada
Sindicato Minero
University of California Los Angeles Labor Center/ Institute for Transnational Social Change
Unifor
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Food and Commercial Workers
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 881
United Steelworkers
United Steelworkers Canada
Warehouse Workers for Justice
Worker Solidarity in Action