Podcast: The New NAFTA: Only Improvements on Paper or Real Change?
Rethinking Trade - Season 1, Episode 12
Last week we discussed the new North American Free Trade Agreement and some of the key improvements we won after years of organized public pressure. The new NAFTA took effect on July 1st. The text requires significant new labor rights and includes strong enforcement. But corporations paying Mexican workers starvation wages are conspiring with right wing Mexican state officials to thwart any real change. The Mexican national government is not stepping up, and the new Mexican labor law is pinned down under a barrage of legal attacks.
In this episode, we breakdown some of these hurdles and discuss how political pressure, grassroots campaigning, and civil society monitoring efforts are needed to translate the new NAFTA’s improvements on paper to real material differences in workers’ lives.
Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/