Protecting workers key in NAFTA talks: labour minister

Protecting workers’ rights is a fundamental Canadian objective in ongoing negotiations to update the free-trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu said on Friday after consultations with key union representatives.

Saying organized labour is squarely behind the federal government’s push for the incorporation of “progressive” rules in the North American Free Trade Agreement, Hajdu said it’s critical the three countries reach a common understanding about the rights of labour and its importance to a healthy economy.

In an interview, Hajdu said, “The rights of Canadian workers is far from ‘virtue signalling.’

It’s about ensuring that we don’t have a race to the bottom where companies can move their labour to other countries that don’t have those protections for workers.”

Friday’s meeting comes days after a number of pro-trade Republicans met with U.S. President Donald Trump to urge him not to cancel NAFTA as he has threatened. The latest round of talks wrapped up in Mexico City late last month, with negotiators saying they made little progress on key issues.

Canada’s labour movement has long expressed concerns about lower wages in Mexico and what they see as substandard worker protections in “right-to-work” American states. Canada has ratified all eight core conventions of the International Labour Organization and its proposals on NAFTA include a demand the other two countries follow suit.

While Mexico has gone some distance toward ratification, the U.S. has largely resisted such a move.

Hajdu called the right to organize and bargain collectively a fundamental right of workers, saying a strong labour movement is inextricably linked to a thriving middle class. Canada, she said, plans to stand firm in its demands to improve on the decades-old trade deal.

“We expect this (deal) to be better than what we had in the previous NAFTA arrangement,” Hajdu said. “We’re not going to back down and accept a deal that doesn’t protect the rights of Canada — and part of that is protecting our labour movement, part of that is protecting our workers.”

Labour leaders also raised concerns at Friday’s meeting about U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands around the “rules of origin” under which products crossing the border qualify for duty exemptions. Trump wants an increase in content produced in North America in order to qualify and a minimum level of American content.