Workers of the hemisphere, unite! Your wages depend on it!

Now that NAFTA has passed (despite labor's active opposition), the union movement in the United States should be wondering what it might have done differently and what it should do now. The AFL-CIO's diagnosis of the weaknesses of NAFTA was correct. Despite all the various statistical guesses about NAFTA's potential overall effect on jobs and wages, there is no question that there will be a loss of some jobs in some locations in the United States. Moreover, if the recent past is a prologue to the near future, Mexican workers will not be better off as a result of trade liberalization in Mexico.

The status of workers in Mexico loomed large in the NAFTA debate because the U.S. labor movement argued that the low wages paid Mexican workers would entice U.S. firms to move south of the border and U.S. workers would, as a result, lose their jobs. NAFTA's supporters responded that the free trade agreement's passage would increase the number of jobs in the United States because of the greater demand for U.S. goods. Moreover, the growth in trade would push Mexican workers' wages up, thereby making Mexico less attractive to U.S. firms. And as the gap between wages paid to Mexican and U.S. workers narrowed, Mexicans would also be less likely to emigrate (legally or illegally) to the United States.

The future will tell who was correct in this debate. We do know now, however, that in the past decade, Mexico has already been following a policy of expanding foreign trade through trade liberalization programs such as the reduction of tariffs. It also lessened restrictions on foreign ownership and investments and diversified its exports. It strengthened its manufacturing sector as a part of the plan to integrate Mexico into the world economy and reduce its dependence on oil exports. President Salinas de Gortari's crusade to have NAFTA approved was only the latest example of his trade liberalization program. But despite all of these efforts, liberalization has not improved the lot of Mexican workers, according to the following data collected by ECLAC, the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and INEGI, the Mexican government's statistical bureau.

* From 1980 to 1990, the percentage of Mexicans lacking sufficient resources to meet basic needs steadily increased from 26.3 percent to 49.2 percent of the population.

* While Mexican worker productivity increased by 349 percent between 1982 and 1991, the purchasing power of the minimum wage paid Mexicans dropped by 73 percent between 1982 and 1992.

* Approximately 55 percent of Mexican workers earn no more than the minimum wage which is not only one of the lowest figures for real wages in Mexican history but is also among the lowest in the world.

* The rich in Mexico during the past decade have grown rich while the poor have grown poorer. The lowest 40 percent of Mexican households saw their income-share drop from 14.3 percent in 1984 to 12 percent in 1989 while the incomes of the top 10 percent increased from 32.8 percent to 37.9.

* Even though the manufacturing sector's exports have grown and are considered an important part of Mexico's restructuring strategy, total employment in manufacturing in August 1992 was only 83.7 percent of what it had been in 1980.

* Real wages paid to workers in the manufacturing sector have declined. In 1992, the purchasing power of manufacturing workers' wages on average was only 60 percent of what it had been in 1980.

Thus Mexico's recent past indicates that the increased trade expected to occur as a result of NAFTA's passage will not automatically raise the standard of living for the Mexican poor and workers. United States companies will, therefore, easily find desperate Mexican workers, eager to work for those U.S. firms wishing to relocate south of the border. In fact, the situation may even become more troublesome since increased trade liberalization may cause even more wealth for the few and comparatively less for the many in Mexico, thereby provoking increased political tension and unrest (as is evidenced by the assassination of the leading presidential candidate and the troubles in the state of Chiapas).

If most Mexican workers will not benefit from NAFTA's passage, what will its effect be on jobs in the United States? There have been varying estimates of how many American jobs might be lost to Mexico, from a low of about 11,250 suggested by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich to a (hotly contested) high of 5.9 million projected by Ross Perot and his associate, Pat Choate. The figures most commonly cited range from 200,000 to 500,000 jobs lost.

Clearly no one really knows how many jobs will disappear. But even many business executives believe there will be a considerable number of jobs lost. Thus, when President Bill Clinton urged U.S. company executives to promise that they would not move jobs from the United States to Mexico, they refused. The company officials clearly did not want to be ultimately caught with their promises showing.

The United States labor movement was thus justifiably concerned about the effects of NAFTA. But was its opposition to the passage of NAFTA the proper approach to follow?

It is true that if NAFTA had been defeated, some U.S. jobs would have been saved. However, economic forces in the world economy would have continued to create pressure for the globalization of production and the integration of markets. As a stage in this process of globalization, regional trade blocs are forming. An example of this is NAFTA, and, thus, in the long run, NAFTA or an equivalent probably would have been inevitable. In fact, NAFTA's regional bloc has provided a not-yet-lost opportunity for the U.S. labor movement, namely, that U.S. unions move toward some real integration with unions in Mexico.

When U.S. industry began to move from local to national markets in the middle of the last century, unions came to recognize the need to cooperate nationally and local unions joined together to form national unions. They saw that unorganized workers in one area received lower wages than unionized workers in another. To prevent the low-wage area from dominating the market, unions realized that they had to motivate workers in both regions to join together in one union so that they could cooperate to narrow the wage differentials.

Now we are moving increasingly into international markets and toward a global economy. Companies recognize this trend and follow the dollar wherever it can be made. Whatever the pronouncements by union leaders about workers of the world uniting, real cooperation among unions generally stops at national borders. But as U.S. labor once met the threat to its strength when national markets developed by trying to have local unions in different parts of the United States join together, so too must U.S. unions learn really to cooperate (and not just attend meetings) with unions in other countries.

The main union federation in Mexico is the CTM, which is part of the Mexican political system (that is, it is a segment of the PRI, the political party that has run Mexico for decades). CTM has done little that would antagonize the political or economic powers that make up the PRI in Mexico. As a result, Mexican workers are often dissatisfied with the little help they receive from CTM unions.

U.S. labor, which played such an important role in helping European unions after World War II, ought to do the same for CTM and the independent Mexican unions. Wage increases that would narrow the gap between Mexican and U.S. workers is one place to begin. Perhaps through a form of trade-union "joint venture," the AFL-CIO, the CTM, and independent unions could join in labor negotiations and strike agreements, creating pressure (as some are beginning to do) on both governments. To help those workers in both countries negatively affected by NAFTA is another starting point. In short, U.S. and Mexican labor must try to circumvent the potential negative impacts of free trade on wages and jobs, the same way that U.S. unions protected wages for automobile workers in Michigan and California. Unions on each side of the border have to struggle together to secure contracts that will insure that wages are not determined solely and inexorably by the international marketplace. Failure to cooperate will only mean that the downward trend in the strength of U.S. labor will continue and the ineffectiveness of Mexican unions will be accentuated.

Such cooperation is beginning. The Teamsters and the United Electrical workers have joined hands with FAT (a federation of Mexican unions not affiliated with CTM) in opposing decisions by General Electric and Honeywell to fire more than a hundred workers in Mexican plants. FAT further told the U.S. Steelworkers Union that it is seeking "ways in which [to] cooperate and coordinate with counterparts in the United States" to limit the flow of capital across the border that could harm U. S. and Mexican workers. The Steelworkers' retiring president, Lynn Williams, agreed with FAT and declared that his union "intends to do all we can to keep Mexico from becoming a haven for...runaway companies looking for low wages."

Some U.S. unions are already helping Mexican workers form labor organizations, such as the one created recently at the Plastico Baja California plant, a subsidiary of the Boston-based Carlisle Plastics. And a few organizations, like the Border Committee of Women Workers, have formed to foster cooperation among Mexican and U.S. workers.

But these are only baby steps. NAFTA ought to energize unions on both sides of the border to act out the principle of "solidarity in case of repression." Some U.S. unions are using the vague appeal procedures, added to NAFTA by Clinton to placate labor, to fight companies whose programs hurt labor on either side of the border. But too many unions are still issuing platitudes about "unionism without borders." Workers of the world need to unite, not because Marx said so, but because the growth of world markets demands it. They have to learn to emulate management's ability to cooperate across borders while they are still strong enough to do so.