The United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA, took effect just over a year ago.
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing earlier this week Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown celebrated a provision in the new agreement that’s meant to protect workers by allowing them to report labor violations.
“We are now looking at trade as worker-centered rather than corporate-centered trade police and that’s important,” Brown said.
Ben Davis is the Director of International Affairs for the United Steelworkers union. He said at the hearing that there have been signs of corruption among some unions in Mexico that are undermining workers’ rights.
“We’re making progress here, but we have to do a lot more to push back on the protection union ‘Tzars’ like Medina and some others who still control the Mexican labor force,” Davis said.
Davis hopes the new labor-violation reporting provision and further legislation will help empower workers across borders.
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