Statement of the UAW on USMCA

Provided final text accurately reflects changes

“UAW members have opposed NAFTA since its inception a quarter century ago because they feared it would lead to the closing of countless manufacturing plants throughout our country and the moving of hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs to Mexico. Time has unfortunately proven UAW members right and it is for this very reason we welcomed the renegotiation of NAFTA (also known as USMCA) and pushed for more to be done.

While the final text of the agreement has not been made available for review, we already know that USMCA Is highly unlikely to bring factories back from Mexico, as some have promised.  It will hopefully stop some of the bleeding of U.S. jobs and UAW members will vigilantly monitor enforcement of the agreement to make sure multinational corporations treat their workers right. We will also fight to make sure Mexico fully implements its labor law reforms and puts an end to company unions and sham contracts that pave for U.S. companies to send jobs south of the border.

If the final text reflects the agreed upon language, it has improved significantly from when it was initially negotiated by the Trump administration because of the tireless work of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Debbie Stabenow and Senator Gary Peters and the USMCA working group who fought to strengthen its labor standards and enforcement provisions. I also want to thank Ambassador Robert Lighthizer for his good-faith negotiations.

But to be clear, much more work remains to fight against the offshoring of jobs and the economic inequality that has plagued our country for so long. While trade deals are important, they alone will not cure all our ills.   We need our elected leaders to do much more. The Administration and Congress should start by ending bad tax laws that reward companies for moving jobs abroad and finally fix our labor laws by passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO Act), and other measures, to ensure all workers have a right to have voice on the job.”