Section II: Cooperation and Research

The NAALC provides two main channels for resolving differences arising from the implementation of the Agreement. First, broad-based cooperation has led to the establishment of two official consultation levels (at ministerial level and through the National Administrative Offices), as well as the evaluation services provided by teams of experts. Second, the creation of mechanisms for the solution of controversies has led to further consultation activities and the integration of arbitration panels. Nonetheless, both the text and spirit of the Agreement give priority to cooperation over and above the mechanisms established for the resolution of differences; the latter are set down in the Agreement as a last resort option. In fact, Article 20 states that the Parties should "at all times" seek a consensus regarding the interpretation and application of the Agreement and underlines that "they shall make every effort to resolve all matters potentially affecting its correct operation through cooperation and consultation."

The foregoing guidelines are complemented by another, more specific type of cooperation that is set down in objective (d) of the first Article of the Agreement and refers to the encouragement of "joint studies to promote the mutually advantageous comprehension of the laws and institutions governing labor-related issues in the territories of the Parties." The performance of these studies is provided for in Article 11(2), which specifies that the latter shall consist of seminars, training courses, work groups and conferences, joint research projects, technical assistance and any other means agreed upon by the Parties. This second form of cooperation will be dealt with in this section. However, after carefully reading all the articles contained in the Agreement, it must be noted that research projects, as well as sectoral studies, are the only activities that may actually be performed in a joint manner, as ascertained in Article 11(2)(b).

In order to ensure the performance of the activities set down in its objectives, the Agreement has provided for the establishment of the Commission for Labor Cooperation, consisting of the Ministerial Council, comprising the Labor Secretaries of Mexico and the United States and the corresponding Canadian Minister, and a Secretariat. The Ministerial Council's functions include the establishment of priorities for the development of cooperation measures as well as the approval of reports and studies prepared by the Secretariat, independent experts and work groups, for subsequent publication.

Article 11 of the Agreement stipulates 16 areas in which the Ministerial Council may promote cooperation activities between the Parties.³ As they are progressively dealt with in Secretariat reports, these activities are carried out under three general headings: a) occupational safety and health; b) employment and labor training; and c) labor legislation and workers' rights. Article 11 also authorizes the Council to open up other areas, whenever the Parties so agree. Furthermore, Article 13(2) states that it is the responsibility of the Executive Director of the Secretariat to submit an annual work plan and budget before the Council, containing specific provisions for cooperation activities. Finally, Article 14 provides for two kinds of Secretariat responsibilities. First, the preparation of periodical descriptive reports based on information available to the public in each of the member states concerning a) labor legislation and labor-related administrative procedures; b) trends and administrative strategies related to the implementation and application of labor legislation; c) labor market conditions such as employment rates, average salaries and labor productivity; and d) matters related to the development of human resources, such as training and adjustment programs. Second, the Secretariat is responsible for preparing studies on any subject requested by the Council. Article 14 states that, unless the Council decides otherwise, all reports and studies shall be published 45 days after receiving Council approval.

The National Administrative Offices (NAOs), in accordance with Article 16, have two main functions involving liaison and the production of information. Their internal liaison duties are focused on government agencies and the worker and employer sectors of each Party; external activities involve the Secretariat, other NAOs and expert committees. As regards the provision of information, Article 16 obliges the NAOs to supply the data required by the Secretariat, expert committees and the NAOs in other countries to ensure compliance with their respective duties.

A. Cooperative Activities

Cooperative activities have been carried out in accordance with two basic guidelines: those performed either jointly or separately by the NAOs, and those directly assigned to the Secretariat by the Council. When our first meeting took place at the Secretariat headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the latter did not have complete background information on all the cooperation activities implemented under the terms of the NAALC, especially those involving the NAOs. This situation was partly due to the fact that the NAOs, above all those based in Mexico and the United States, had been created before the Secretariat began its operations in September 1995. The Secretariat's Coordinator of International Cooperative Activities has since made a considerable effort to correct some of these deficiencies. The information subsequently gathered from the NAOs has therefore served as the basis for this evaluation. However, it should also be stated that, since such data is really of a provisional nature, it really requires complete documentary support.

As shown in Table I, most of the cooperation tasks have been carried out either independently or jointly by the NAOs, through different types of events ranging from small meetings, courses and seminars to the planning of annual conferences. It is worth noting that a large part of these activities were initially carried out in 1994, while the number of events fell by almost half during the following year.

As seen in Table II, the predominance of activities during 1994 is the result of the fact that the exceptional organizational work of the Mexican NAO (13 events out of 17) tailed off in later years. It seems likely that this decline was caused by the internal policy of a new federal administration and the economic crisis which took effect as of 1995, which in turn affected performance. On the other hand, the United States and Canadian NAOs have succeeded in maintaining a constant rhythm. Activities involving the organization of trinational cooperation and those organized by the CLC/Secretariat are concentrated in 1997, the final year covered by this evaluation.

Table III shows distribution in terms of event type. Although the confusion surrounding the use of terminology over the last four years has made it difficult to develop a categorization to clearly discriminate between the different areas, the table nonetheless shows that the different types of events have been fairly well-balanced vis-à-vis the requirements of the Parties and the specific needs of the Agreement as a whole. In fact, courses and seminars account for most of the events and are concentrated in the first year. Together with the gradual and constant growth of the number of workshops, the foregoing element demonstrates that the need for mutual understanding vis-à-vis the general differences in labor legislation and the economic and social circumstances of each country largely determined both the topics covered and the type of events organized during the first two years. The concentration of annual conferences, or events involving large-scale participation, towards the second half of the quadrennium points to the gradual maturing of mutual comprehension in the area of cooperation-related issues.

Nevertheless, the most serious deficiency involves the scant publicity given to the contributions made by participants in specialized events. Of the nine seminars staged throughout the four years, only two actually led to the publication of reports, while the remainder produced little more than the brief summaries included in the bulletins edited by the Secretariat. The same situation applies to workshops; none of the seven workshops organized during the quadrennium generated a special publication, despite the importance of their topics: Labor Law and Practices, Equality Issues in the Workplace, Continuous Learning and Development, Income Security Programs, Productivity Trends and Indicators, The Right to Organize and Freedom of Association, and Labor Law and Freedom of Association.

Together with the fact that an attempt was recently made to summarize the information produced by this type of activity, a review of Secretariat archives clearly reveals a deficient flow of documentary information stemming from events organized by the three NAOs and the Secretariat. The Secretariat should therefore compile all corresponding information, so as to imbue the publications policies submitted to the Ministerial Council with an improved sense of content and orientation.

Table III also draws our attention to the tendency to substitute courses, seminars and workshops for sessions (government-to-government or government and other involved sectors, including academics) and annual conferences. While it is nonetheless true that such sessions and conferences may well be the result of the follow-up stemming from issues identified during courses, seminars and workshops, it is also fair to say that the latter should not be set aside within the overall policy of Agreement implementation. Conferences are undoubtedly increasing the publicity of and participation in activities derived from NAALC activities.

In accordance with Agreement regulations, the NAOs are responsible for a large part of the activities falling within the general category of cooperation. However, matters of national interest inevitably arise when complying with these stipulations. Table IV shows the information gathered by the Secretariat in accordance with the three main areas upon which its reports have been focused since 1995: a) occupational safety and health; b) employment and labor training; and c) labor legislation and workers' rights. The table clearly indicates the following interests: Mexico has been especially preoccupied with questions related to occupational safety and health, while also sharing an interest with Canada and the Secretariat in topics concerning worker employment and training. However, these two subcategories have been of relatively little interest to the United States NAO, which has tended to consider labor legislation and workers' rights as priority issues. This situation no doubt stems from the fact that all of the public communications produced by the United States NAO have dealt with this category.

It is difficult to evaluate the impact of events organized by the NAOs. Table V contains information gathered by the Secretariat and shows that medium-sized (16-50 participants) and large (51 participants or more) events predominated. Mexico has played an outstanding role in the organization of medium-sized events. This was especially the case in 1994, and since most of these events involved panelists and audiences, this situation clearly demonstrates an interest in the publication of labor-related norms and information. The predominance of large events (conferences) in 1997, the scarcity of small events, and the lack of medium-sized events during the course of the same year is a reflection of earlier follow-up work carried out with regard to different topics.

The foregoing conclusions are partially confirmed by Table VI. Mexico has sponsored 11 medium-sized events out of a total of 19 organized in the course of these four years. However, the distribution of this kind of event is considerably more balanced in the case of the United States and Canadian NAOs. It should also be noted that the Secretariat only began to organize large-scale events as of 1997.

The Secretariat has, for its part, organized in 1997 a working group on cross-border workers' compensation. This working group marks the first time that the Secretariat has worked on an issue asked for directly by the public in the three countries (in this case, state or provincial workers' compensation administrators).

B. Publications and Publicity

To sum up, several general observations may be made on the basis of the foregoing elements. First, we should highlight the deficiencies affecting the flow of information between the NAOs and the Secretariat. The text of the Agreement states that one of the responsibilities of this agency involves updating the registration of topics and events organized by the NAOs, in order to complement the cooperation and publication of norms provided for by the Agreement and by the labor legislation and practices of the Parties. The need to improve and adjust communications to make them permanent and constant is one of the first recommendations stemming from this section of our evaluation. It should however be noted that the efforts made by the Secretariat to update information over the course of the last four years has set a very healthy precedent.

A second observation may be derived from the former. While one of the main goals of the Agreement involves furthering the understanding of the labor legislation and practices of the Parties, it is nonetheless clear that this objective has only been partially achieved. Most of the information produced by the different events was only really available to those attending and participating in them. Papers, conclusions and reports remained in the archives of the respective NAOs sponsoring the events, and despite the fact that the Secretariat began to edit a bulletin, this data never actually reached a wider public. A notable exception, however, is the publication by the Secretariat in a book form, of the papers presented at the 1997 North American Seminar on Income and Productivity. A second recommendation would be for the Secretariat to take advantage of the information accumulated during previous events as the raw material for research projects.

Finally, it should be noted that although the general studies and seminars in all three countries provide substantial understanding among the parties, these studies in some respects are vague and ambiguous in enabling the public to be clear how they apply in concrete situations.

C. Research Projects

As members of the evaluation team, we had access and the opportunity to review Secretariat archives and reports. We were therefore able to ascertain that as of 1995, immediately after its formal establishment, the Secretariat began to perform studies related to labor issues.

Three of these studies were derived from the initial work plan. Entitled North American Labor Markets: A Comparative Profile, the first study offers an important comparative analysis of labor statistics in the three countries and describes the main trends affecting important issues such as employment, working hours, unemployment, unionization, salaries, productivity, income distribution and benefits.

The next study was a preliminary report submitted to the Ministerial Council and was entitled Labor and Industrial Relations Law in Canada, the United States and Mexico. This work includes a presentation and analysis of labor legislation in the three countries with regard to the first three Principles of the Agreement: freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to strike. This study was published in December 1996 and also serves as the basis for a more complete study currently being made by the Secretariat.

A third study, with the working title Standard and Advanced Practices in the North American Apparel Industry, is due for submission to the Council during the course of 1998. This study has been developed in line with the basic tenets of the NAALC and upholds the idea that "the protection of basic workers' rights will lead companies to adopt competitive strategies focused on high productivity."

As a result of the consultation process stemming from Public Communication 9501, concerning plant closure or the threat of such closure as a means of preventing worker unionization, a fourth study was commissioned by the Ministerial Council. In order to carry out this study, the Secretariat hired the services of specialists to conduct in situ research in each of the three countries, especially in the area of labor tribunals. The results produced by these studies clearly highlighted the differences between the laws and labor practices used by employers and trade unions in the three countries. Published in June 1997 under the title Plant Closing and Labor Rights, this study is a good example of research providing comparative information on labor issues above and beyond the comparison of statistics and legal frameworks and thereby contributing to a better and more effective mutual understanding.

The progress made by the foregoing study has led the Secretariat to propose the development of short reports on specific issues. The first of these is entitled The Employment of Women in North America and focuses on the specific trends prevailing in this labor market between 1984 and 1996.

The Secretariat also publishes a quarterly bulletin, available via subscription, that deals with the activities of the Labor Cooperation Commission and also offers statistics and other comparative indicators related to the labor market in each of the three countries. The publicity activities carried out by the Secretariat since its establishment in September 1995 have been completed by the organization of a library at the Secretariat headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and the design of specialized Internet pages.

General observations on this area are naturally related to those embodied in the foregoing section. The first and most obvious observation concerns the fact that Secretariat publicity projects are separated from NAO activities, with the notable and single exception of the Sprint study (Public Communication 9501). In this latter case, both the study and its publicity were ordered by the Council of Ministers.

The first publications were oriented towards satisfying information needs from a comparative point of view, while also complying with Ministerial Council orders based on matters pertaining to its specific jurisdiction. Those studies contributed to fill gaps of basic knowledge regarding various relevant aspects of the Parties' legal frameworks and labor practices.

It is therefore recommended that efforts to further the comprehension of legislative frameworks, and above all general labor practices, be reinforced as a means of providing the basis for further, more specific studies.

In this respect it is urgent to proceed to the translation of the Parties' labor laws and relevant regulations in the three official languages of the NAALC. The Secretariat should continue its efforts to expand and consolidate ground and basic research, which is the basis for future comparative studies.

After having successfully concluded its first stage of development, the Secretariat now has two main channels for the expansion of its research and publicity activities. The first of these involves close collaboration with the NAOs; the second is based on addressing specific topics from a comparative perspective and is perhaps the best way to generate data and knowledge concerning the specific differences in legislation and labor practices in the three countries.

A final recommendation would involve the Secretariat submitting a more aggressive and far-reaching publications and publicity policy to the Ministerial Council, establishing clear priorities.