Section IV: Cooperative Activities, Research, and Public Information and Education

A. The Scope of Cooperative and Public Educational Activities under the NAALC

Cooperative activities, as the term is used in the NAALC, may be characterized as the gathering and exchanging of information about labor law, industrial relations, labor markets, and human resources practices in each Party country considered on its own and/or comparatively to the other two.³⁷ The information dissemination and learning aspects bear close connection to other NAALC-related research activities, as well as to public information and education functions. These functions will therefore be examined together in this section of the report.

Cooperative activities can involve mutual examination of each country's typical practices, best practices, or both, across any portion of the spectrum of work-related matters. Technical assistance from one Party to another regarding development of its labor standards is also included under this rubric.³⁸ The activity may take a variety of forms, ranging from conventional mutual education formats, such as "seminars, training sessions, working groups, and conferences,"³⁹ to joint research projects, technical assistance, and any other method the Parties adopt.⁴⁰

Cooperative activities can provide benefits on several levels. The process is broadly educational for the labor ministries/departments of each Party and their expert advisors. Moreover, since many cooperative activities have been deliberately designed on a tripartite as well as a trinational basis, to include business, labor and governmental participants, the process has been instructive for leaders within all sides of the industrial relations and human resources community in each country. Mutual understanding among business leaders, among government leaders, and among union leaders of all three countries is enhanced, the beginnings of cross-border alliances are fostered, and much is learned on the part of management, labor, and government about the possibility of improved methods or alternative approaches to those presently dominant in each respective country. Understanding between labor, business, and government within a given country or across borders may also deepen.

B. Cooperative Activities and Public Education Programs Conducted to Date

1. NAO-Conducted Activities⁴¹

   During the first four years of the NAALC, a sizeable number of cooperative activities and public education programs have been conducted under the auspices of the Agreement. Nearly all have been organized by the three NAOs; only a handful have been developed in whole or in part by the Secretariat. Attached hereto as Appendix A is a document produced by the U.S. NAO, summarizing NAO-conducted cooperative activities during this period.

   During 1994-1995, the lion's share of the NAO-organized activities related to occupational safety and health. These included training programs conducted by U.S. and/or Canadian occupational safety and health agency instructors for Mexican counterpart personnel on topics such as sampling and laboratory analysis of airborne contaminants, principles of ergonomics, sampling of environmental contaminants, industrial hygiene, accident inspections, and hazard recognition training for industrial hygienists. The industrial hygienists' hazard recognition program was addressed to private sector as well as government personnel. In addition, Mexican officials joined with U.S. OSHA officials in running a biohazards course and an accident inspection program aimed at Mexican trainees. Several other programs involved trinational and, in some cases, tripartite information sharing on occupational health and safety-related matters, including the technical seminar on safety and health in the electronics industry, a similar seminar in the petrochemical industry, and a seminar on occupational safety and health statistics.

   In 1994, 12 cooperative activities were conducted relating to health and safety at work, compared to four on other subjects. In 1995, three more programs were held on themes pertaining to occupational safety and health, compared to three on other subjects. Occupational safety and health themes thereafter declined both in absolute number and as a percentage of total NAO-developed cooperative activities, but nevertheless, in comparison to other subjects, job safety and health dominated the activities. In 1996, three of nine NAO-organized cooperative activities dealt with workplace safety and health issues; in 1997, two out of five.

   The next most significant area of focus for cooperative activities has been labor law and labor-management relations practices, including two tripartite programs in 1994 focusing on cooperative labor-management relations, two government-to-government workshops in 1995 on freedom of association and labor law, as well as portions of the 1996 tripartite Third Conference on Labor Law and Industrial Relations, regarding "Industrial Relations in the 21st Century." A tripartite program regarding the labor-management relations of multinationals operating in NAFTA countries is set for 1998. There have also been planning conferences, followed by full scale tripartite conferences, on women's rights and problems in the workplace (1995, "Equality in the Workplace"; 1996, government-to-government planning workshop; 1997, "Women and Work in the 21st Century") and on child labor (1996, government-to-government planning session; 1997, "Child and Youth Labor in North America"; 1997, follow-up conference on child labor).

   Productivity has likewise been the theme of several different programs, including aspects of the two 1994 programs on cooperative labor-management relations, the 1994 workshop on productivity trends and indicators, the 1996 workshop on continuous learning and development in the workplace, and the 1997 North American OSH week, in which occupational safety and health was stressed as a factor in productivity.

   Atypical employment has been the focus of a 1994 technical seminar on microenterprises and the informal sector and a 1996 tripartite seminar on responding to the growth of nonstandard work and changing work time patterns and practices. The theme of atypical work was also touched upon in the course of programs regarding women in the workplace and regarding child and youth employment. An additional conference on contracting out is also in the planning stages for 1998.

   One workshop was held in 1996 on the topic of income security programs. Finally, several programs have related to government statistical functions, including the previously mentioned 1994 workshop on productivity trends and indicators, the 1994 seminar on occupational safety and health statistics, and a trinational seminar on "labor market trends and the role of government," scheduled for spring 1998. In addition to these programs, formally a part of "cooperative activities," under the category of "public education," the U.S. NAO has been involved in developing seminars and conferences jointly with American institutions of higher education and publishing the proceedings,⁴² as has the Secretariat.

2. Secretariat-Conducted Activities

   The Secretariat is expressly charged with periodically preparing background reports comparatively presenting publicly available information on each Party as to labor law and administrative procedures, trends and administrative strategies regarding implementation and enforcement of labor laws, labor market conditions, and human resource development, as well as preparing a study on any matter requested by the Council.⁴³

   Thus far, academically highly regarded reports have been received comparing labor market conditions in each of the three Parties and comparing their labor laws. In addition, a well-researched comparative study on plant relocations and closures as a union avoidance device under each of the three national labor law systems was completed at the request of the Council, as an outgrowth of Mexican NAO Submission 9501,⁴⁴ which arose out of a San Francisco area plant closing involving a telecommunications firm. This submission alleged that the U.S. was failing to enforce workers' right to freedom of association and their right to organize in the anti-union plant relocation context.

1. In General

   It is difficult to find anyone opposed to cooperative activities in general, although the degree of enthusiasm varies, and the assessment of any particular program may differ. The business community in all three countries is quite enthusiastic about cooperative activities; in many instances, company executives attending these programs derive concrete knowledge they can rapidly put into practice in their own operations. The U.S. business community has expressed its preference that this aspect of the Agreement dominate the Commission's operations. The labor movement, at least in the U.S., finds these activities of some, albeit uneven, benefit, but views the contribution cooperative activities can make toward achieving compliance with each Party's NAALC obligations, and progress towards the broad NAALC goals, to be quite limited.

2. The Roles of the NAOs and the Secretariat

   As the points of contact between governmental agencies of each Party, among the three NAOs, and between the Secretariat and the Party, the NAOs have played a central role in all cooperative activities. As to the Secretariat's reports and studies, the NAOs appear to have fulfilled their duties, under the Agreement, to supply publicly available information about their country, its labor laws, markets, and practices. As to seminars, workshops, conferences, and other trinational, mutual education programs, most have been organized and conducted by the three NAOs, working in cooperation with each other. The Secretariat has been limited to organizing several primarily academic conferences and publishing the proceedings.

   This division of labor between Secretariat and NAOs is not dictated by the text of the Agreement. The NAALC allocates general responsibility for the cooperative activities function to the Council⁴⁵ and imposes on the Secretariat the broad duty to "assist the Council in exercising its functions and provide such other support as the Council may direct."⁴⁶ The NAOs' functions as points of contact among the three Parties and with the Secretariat, and as sources of public information for each other and the Secretariat, support, but do not require, the Council's practice of allocating to the NAOs the leading role in performing the task of developing the lion's share of the cooperative activities.

   The Secretariat has thus far been structured and staffed along the lines of an expert, interdisciplinary, trinational labor research institute to provide expert support to the Council. Despite occasional expressions of dissatisfaction by individual representatives of the labor, business and government communities, at this very early juncture, the Secretariat appears to be fulfilling its allotted functions well. This led the U.S. NAC, in developing this report, to consider the alternative of institutionally housing the greater proportion of cooperative activities in such an academically oriented institute.

   It is the consensus of the U.S. NAC, however, that the NAOs remains the preferable organizational sites for developing and implementing cooperative activities. First, the NAOs are each constituent parts of their government's labor ministry/department; the NAO staff members themselves are usually governmental officials with practical experience in the labor field, and they are organizationally positioned to draw on the expertise of the professional staff throughout other divisions of the Party's labor ministry/department. Second, especially significant when developing activities involving business, governmental and labor representation, rather than purely academic conferences, the NAOs and the labor ministries in which they are located are deeply embedded within their respective national industrial relations communities and have a broad web of contacts and resources upon which to draw in organizing cooperative activities. Were the Secretariat tasked as the lead agency for conducting cooperative activities, it might be hampered by the lack of such resources, or their availability might be dependent on the chance personal contacts of particular Secretariat staff members.

   Third, and most important, because each NAO constitutes its Party government's interface with other NAALC institutions, while each NAO remains an internal component of its own domestic government, an NAO's commitment to a particular cooperative activity carries with it the support and cooperation of its entire government. The Secretariat, by contrast, is by design a trinational institution beholden to no one Party and external to the domestic political and executive functions of all three. While the political location of the three NAOs sometimes reduces their mutual efficiency in developing the best possible cooperative activities, it increases the impact of the activities because they are conducted with full support of each government.

3. Substantive Content of the Activities

   It is too early to assess the overall priorities, set by the Council with advice from the NAOs, as to the substantive focus of cooperative activities. The heavy emphasis in the first years on activities related to health and safety at work is plainly justifiable by the expressed need for technical assistance in this area. The significant, albeit weaker focus on labor-management relations practices and labor law, particularly freedom of association, is understandable in light of the prevalence of related issues in the submissions addressed by the Parties thus far. More recent activities seem to cover a broader range of issues, and at least some reflect an interest in the most vulnerable, marginalized workers, including women, children and youth, and persons employed in atypical work relationships.

   Certain topics mentioned in the NAALC list of appropriate areas for cooperative activities⁴⁷ have yet to be the subject of any programming. Migrant workers, employment standards and their implementation, and compensation for work-related injury or illness constitute the main untouched areas. Little cooperative activity programming has been done on issues of work benefits and on social programs for workers and their families, either.

   Another area on the Annex 1 list of labor laws, discrimination in employment on bases such as race, ethnicity, and national origin (i.e., on grounds other than sex) is omitted from the Article 11 listing of cooperative activity topics and should perhaps be considered for future cooperative activities, as an "other matter" on which the Parties must agree. The Parties have committed to efforts to eliminate employment discrimination on these grounds among the obligations they undertake in the NAALC; this, too, is an area in which sharing problems and solutions would be mutually beneficial. Different but parallel issues of employment discrimination based on race, skin color, national origin, and native descent exist in all three NAFTA countries and pose deep political and sociological issues. Given the delicacy of these questions, they would certainly require careful handling, but comparative analysis often yields unexpected insights to the benefit of all participants.

   Another area not expressly focused upon in the cooperative activities listed within Article 11(1) is cross-border, work-related problems, whether stemming from NAFTA or independent of it. To a degree, the Secretariat has become engaged with these matters, particularly in its study entitled Plant Closings and Labor Rights. The border areas of states or provinces in all three countries, however, are already expressing concern about the impact of cross-border labor mobility on aspects of labor law and practice. Compensation for occupational illness and accidents has already been raised by numerous local authorities as an urgent matter. It is predictable that problems of government-provided benefits, such as social security, as well as employer-provided benefits, will also arise and require focused attention. These are areas where workers, employers, and local governments, as well as the national government of each Party, have important interests at stake in sound, well thought-out solutions to the changes cross-border labor mobility will produce.

4. Effectiveness of Cooperative Activities and Public Education Programs in Furthering NAALC Objectives

   Over the past four years, the three NAOs have plainly undergone a learning process regarding how best to design and organize cooperative activities. The increasing sophistication of the activities conducted evidences this process. The connection between design of the activity and the target participants in the educational process, as well as the link between the aims of the program and the furthering of one or more of the NAALC objectives, has become progressively tighter, a trend which must be applauded.

   Certain cooperative activity topics, for example, are valuable in developing a trinational base of comparative labor law, industrial relations, or labor economics for government officials and experts in each of the three countries and have been designed specifically to develop that base of expertise. These types of activities will yield dividends in future policy making. Other subjects of cooperative activities are of greater immediate significance for the industrial relations and human resources practitioner audience, that is, for policy making at the level of the firm rather than the government, and the structure of these events has increasingly been designed taking into account the nature of this intended participant group.

   Programs aimed at government officials most often further NAALC objectives relating to labor law drafting, implementation, and enforcement. Programs aimed at the industrial relations practitioner may further voluntary compliance and private enforcement objectives, but likewise may foster non-law related goals at the level of the enterprise, such as improving productivity, disseminating best practices, and developing a high skill, high productivity economy. Public education goals, plainly, are fostered by events geared toward providing information on NAALC themes to the general public rather than specialists.

   The NAOs have proven increasingly capable of developing workshops, seminars and conferences that fit the intended audience and foster participation by the desired labor, management and government communities. Most activities not limited to direct, government participation have been conducted on both a trinational and tripartite (management, labor, and government) basis. The availability of the results of these activities has been expanded through printed publication of the conference proceedings in several instances. The NAOs have begun to use printed, electronic, audio and video recording and publication of the fruits of the activities to multiply their effectiveness. Expansion of these developments should be encouraged. In particular, as discussed further in the final section of this report, expanded use of internet and website publication of all speeches, presentations, and transcripts of proceedings would greatly further the NAALC commitments to transparency and ready public access to information.