By Doug Cunningham

On Tuesday more than two dozen U.S., Canadian and Mexican labor organizations will file a charge against the U.S. and North Carolina under labor provisions of NAFTA. The accusation is that 650,000 public employees in North Carolina are being denied the right to collectively bargain. Dan Kovalik, Associate General Counsel of the United Steelworkers.

[Dan Kovalik 1]: “The allegation is that the failure to allow them their rights to freely organize violates the U.S.’s obligations under NAFTA. States like North Carolina are startin’ to look more and more like Third World countries in terms of people’s ability to organize and in terms of their working conditions.”

NAFTA requires nations to provide high labor standards and collective bargaining is listed as a core principle. The United Nations’ International Labor Organization also requires collective bargaining rights. Kovalik says the right to unionize is being eroded and blocked in workers in the U.S. are increasingly seeing their rights to unionize eroded and blocked. He says charging the U.S. with violating NAFAT labor agreements can help expose

the loss of these rights.

[Kovalik 2]: “The hope in bringing it is to shed light on the problem – a growing problem in this country of the ability of workers to legally organize. We’re trying to stem the tide of a growing erosion of the right of workers in this country to unionize.”