CDM commends Thomas Perez, U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Alfonso Navarrete Prida, Mexican Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare, for beginning to address shortcomings of fair labor provisions under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) in the Public Report on Outreach Events, released on September 23. While CDM recognizes actions undertaken jointly by the two governments to inform workers about their rights as a symbolic first step, we emphasize that there is still much to be done in terms of enforcing workplace protections.
The Report details several educational and outreach activities for workers during the years 2014 and 2015; such events were carried out following a series of petitions filed by migrant workers and labor advocates, including CDM’s complaint (2011-1 MEX), which denounced the U.S. government’s failure to protect migrant workers against recruitment and employment abuse. While the Report demonstrates the acknowledgement of the educational component of CDM’s complaint, it fails to address recommendations relating to enforcement and accountability on behalf of the U.S. government.
The U.S. Department of Labor is not currently fulfilling its responsibilities to safeguard workers’ rights thoroughly under its NAALC obligations. For example, the agency should be providing access to justice through litigation and other mechanisms to ensure workers’ wage and reimbursement rights are respected; it should not be granting H-2 visa certifications to employers who have not emitted reimbursements to workers; and it should be increasing audits and visits to workplaces in certain industries.
The outreach and education program described in this report was strictly directed to workers and thus overlooks the essential role of key stakeholders, especially government agencies, in preventing and reacting to workplace violations. Governments at municipal, state and federal levels should play an active role in protecting workers’ rights; and they should be held accountable when these rights are violated.
We stress the need for the governments of Mexico and the U.S. to address the rest of the points in CDM’s complaint in order to uphold minimum labor and employment standards for migrant workers under NAALC.