General Discussion

eridani

(51,907 posts) Fri Nov 13, 2015, 05:51 AM Nov 2015

Worried TPP Will Hurt Workers? This Case Will Provide Some Clues.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/12/worried-tpp-will-hurt-workers-case-will-provide-some-clues

Chedraui is Mexico's third-largest retail chain with 35,000 employees in more than 200 stores throughout the country; the corporation also has a majority-stake in the California-based Bodega Latina Corporation, which does business as the El Super grocery chain with 50 supermarkets employing more than 5,000 workers in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

According to UFCW Local 770 president Ricardo Icaza, "in both Mexico and the United States, the company has silenced employees' voices and trampled their rights."

The OECD complaint calls for a halt to El Super's "aggressive, multi-year campaign of coercion against workers seeking a living wage, adequate sick days, and affordable health insurance," while the NAFTA filing alleges that Chedraui has "cultivated dozens of sham unions in Mexico through so-called 'protection contracts' that represent the interests of management, not workers, and prevent the formation of independent unions."

"We believe an international solution is necessary to this international problem," said Icaza.

The coalition says that Thursday's filing is the first time complaints about a company's international labor abuses have been simultaneously submitted under both the OECD and NAFTA complaint mechanisms—an approach organizers believe "will produce results tailored to the situation in each country."

But the impact could go far beyond these specific cases, coming just as debate over the controversial TPP—which has been called "NAFTA on steroids"—intensifies. As the Obama administration tries to push the TPP through Congress, labor groups will be watching its response to these complaints, and if it fails to act, TPP critics will likely see it as proof that the U.S. is failing to protect labor rights within trade agreements.