Enact Fair Trade Policies

The San Francisco Living Wage Coalition campaigns to demand that Congress enacts fair trade agreements that have protections for workers and the environment. Bad trade agreements that do not have worker protections and rely on moving manufacturing and production to low-wage areas of the world are resulting in a vicious spiral to the bottom, without a safety net for those displaced from their livelihoods nor job training programs to provide skills for new jobs.

a. A Changing Labor Regime: The Rise of Independent Unions in Mexico

For much of its history, Mexico’s labor regime has long been dominated by state-controlled unions established by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the political party that governed the nation for much of the 20th Century. (Read More)

b. Campaign for the Right to Organize a Union

This new era of laissez-faire capitalism that has spurred widespread economic globalization permitted by establishment of neoliberal free-trade policies has created a trend of fragmented labor in which U.S.-owned companies are able to outsource their labor to countries such as Mexico. (Read More)

c. Building of a culture of solidarity

Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, corporations in the U.S. and Mexico have been driving down wages to reduce labor costs. As a result, workers in both countries have been supporting each other in solidarity. (Read More)

d. Promote Cross Border Solidarity with Maquiladora Workers

Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso Texas, is the location of many huge maquiladoras. A growing movement of maquiladoras workers is protesting their working conditions. (Read more)

e. A Guide to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

The United States is attempting to sideline China as the workshop of the world in a proposed trade regime with 13 other nations called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). The 13 countries include Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. (Read more)