UAW President Shawn Fain and other leaders in the union he heads say big changes are needed in the deal governing trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico to fix the damage from current and past agreements.
Fain, speaking during a webinar on the evening of Thursday, May 21, ahead of trade talks next week in Mexico, said workers have suffered as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“What finally killed the American dream is what we call the free trade disaster, and if we want to revive the American dream, we need to fix our broken trade deals, starting with the USMCA,” said Fain, who wore a blue shirt featuring the words, “KILL NAFTA,” visible on the screen.
The union’s position is that these trade deals haven’t just hurt workers in the United States, but that they have also been detrimental to workers in Mexico, even as the companies involved have profited handsomely.
The union laid out three key demands for the USMCA discussions and said that if they aren’t met then the United States should pull out of the agreement:
UAW Legislative Director Rajiv Sicora provided some insights into what the union wants from each of those areas.On the topic of auto production, for instance, the union would like to see trade rebalanced to a point where the United States is selling as many cars within its borders as it produces, but Sicora acknowledged that would take time.
The United States, according to a chart that was displayed, produces 61 vehicles to every 100 sold. For Canada, that number is 65 to 100, but for Mexico, the number is 249 to 100.
The union envisions a quota system per automaker that would provide tariff relief based on reducing the disparity.The union also wants a framework to put teeth in the agreement to enforce labor rights, one that could be a model for other international trade agreements. Ideally, according to the union, it would include a mechanism to address issues in the United States, too.
A wage floor should also be included to improve wages in Mexico, according to the union.
The union asserted that some tools in the USMCA could have improved conditions for workers, but that Mexico labor law enforcement and the rapid response mechanism designed to address violations, for instance, have remained weak or resulted in insufficient remedies.
The USMCA was negotiated during President Donald Trump’s first term and went into effect in 2020, touted at the time as a fix for the oft-maligned NAFTA. During the webinar, Fain called NAFTA “one of the most effective killers of blue-collar jobs in the 20th century.”
A review process for the USMCA is scheduled for this year, but what many consider the president’s adversarial approach to U.S. trading partners and his fondness for tariffs, along with the reactions they’ve generated, leave the outlook uncertain.
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW’s Fain says reviving American dream means fixing trade deals
Reporting by Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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