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16 October, 2006
The Frente Autentica del Trabajo (FAT) will file, on behalf of ICEM US affiliate, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), a rare complaint tomorrow, 17 October, with the US Labor Department over the inability of public employees in the state of North Carolina to engage in collective bargaining.
The complaint, to be filed under the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), a 1993 side agreement to the US, Mexico, and Canada free trade agreement (NAFTA), includes over 40 labour organisations as co-signees, including Global Union Federations ICEM and Public Service International (PSI).
A branch union of UE in North Carolina, Local 150, has aggressively built a membership of 3,000 public workers in the US Atlantic seaboard state. But state law bars the employees, both state and municipal workers, from collective bargaining rights.
Such a prohibition not only violates NAALC, but is also a clear affront to established international labour standards. Two other ICEM North American affiliates have also co-signed the FAT/UE complaint: Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada, and the United Steelworkers (USW), which has membership in both the US and Canada.
FAT and UE have had a decades-long relationship that has protected workers' labour and human rights on each side of the US-Mexican border.
NAALC, the only agreement signed by the US government that deals with labour standards as a supplement to an international trade agreement, ensures that the three countries' labour laws provide for "high labour standards and continue to strive to improve those standards."
The FAT/UE complaint will be submitted to the US Labor Department's Office of Trade Agreement Implementation (OTAI), which has 60 days to either accept or decline to review the complaint. If accepted, consultations on the issue begin with the respective national administration offices for the trade pact of the other two countries.