NAFTA Kills Jobs, And Helps Immigrants?

By Victor Landa

I’m at a loss. I’m not sure whether to file this under “paradox” or “ironic twist.”

Here’s the bulk of the dilemma: A labor union in the U.S. has filed a complaint in Mexico against a law that was ratified in the state of Alabama. The law in question, Alabama’s HB56, is known as the Hammon-Beason Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act; it’s patterned after Arizona’s SB1070, only Alabama’s law is regarded as stricter than the Arizona version.

The union, the SEIU, complains that the Alabama law violates the labor agreements that are put in place in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), specifically, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation.

They may have a point. According to a report in the Huffington Post:

 The law “contradicts key provisions of the [North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation] and has devastating consequences for migrant and immigrant workers in Alabama, as well as for all workers in the state,” the group wrote in its complaint.

Here’s the irony (or is it a paradox?): Labor’s opposition (in general) to NAFTA has been de rigueur, no exceptions. Until now. The rap against NAFTA has been that it takes American jobs and sends them south. Apparently that goes for SEIU lawyer jobs as well. In 2011 a Chicago SEIU Local 1 president put it bluntly, as reported by CBS Chicago:

SEIU Local 1 president Tom Balanoff is among those who blame NAFTA for sending thousands of American jobs overseas and is hoping to avoid a repeat.

So SEIU is against NAFTA, except when it’s for it.

Look, I understand the legal Jiu-Jitsu, I think it’s really clever and possibly a winning strategy. Debaters do it all the time: use the opponent’s own language against them. It seems that in the frenzy of advancing anti-immigrant laws in a checker-board manner across the states of the union, the proponents are stumbling over their own ideologies and previously established laws and international treaties. The SEIU saw what the anti-immigrants zealots missed.

So they’ve taken an international concern to have an international hearing.

I wish them luck, but I’m left with several questions:

1. Will the SEIU have to take the Walmart route to have their concerns heard? (I know it’s a low-blow, but it’s valid.)
2. Is there any assurance that the case will make it’s way through the Mexican legal system in time to make a difference?
3. The question I started with, is this an irony or a paradox?