Linking labor issues and power resources with North American trade agreements.

摘要

Subject. Labor protection issues have traditionally been excluded from free trade agreements. This research is a comparative case study of the evolving inclusion of labor issues and protections in the United States---Canada Free Trade Agreement (USCFTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The research and analysis focus primarily on the increasing influence and impacts of labor unions on these agreements via non-traditional coalitions.;Theoretical constructs used in this research are Robert D. Putnam's two-level games model, including negotiation "win-sets" and Ian Robinson's four structural characteristics of labor movement power resources: union density (membership), legislative strength, unity and coherence, and centralized collective bargaining.;Selected findings. One of the findings is that free trade agreements involving North American countries led to increased legal and political integration of labor protection issues. Such issues were discussed during the USCFTA negotiations, but they were not included in the agreement. Another finding is that in the NAFTA negotiations, labor protection issues were included in a side agreement with limited enforcement provisions. Since the NAFTA, several free trade agreement talks, including the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA), have included discussions of labor protection issues.;Conclusions. Labor union power resources had declined in Canada and the United States before and during the free trade agreement talks. To counteract this decreasing power, labor unions joined non-traditional coalitions to fight and shape these agreements. Thus, labor unions experienced an increase in their unity and coherence, and legislative strength by joining forces with environmental, human rights, and other free-trade opposition groups. The increase in power resources had an impact on the "win-sets" used by the negotiators for each country.