Trade and Worker Rights Project

USLEAP campaigns for effective global trade rules to protect workers and against trade agreements (e.g. the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA) that do not protect workers abroad who organize to improve their wages and working conditions. 

This project supports workers in the region by also seeking to apply the conditions of U.S. trade programs that require improved respect for worker rights as a condition for receiving special U.S. trade benefits.  These trade programs include the Andean Trade Preferences Act and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). 

USLEAP periodically files petitions with the U.S. Trade Representative documenting violent intimidation of workers, illegal efforts to thwart the right to organize, and other worker rights violations.  Advocating for implementation of the worker rights conditions of U.S. trade programs has proven useful to securing some advances and specific victories, demonstrating the importance of linking trade to respect for worker rights. USLEAP believes that the use of such pressure must be exercised only with the support of workers in Latin America. Without worker support in the South, trade pressure from the U.S. citing worker rights violations abroad can appear to be or may in fact be motivated by protectionist interests.

USLEAP supports conditioning multilateral trade agreements (e.g. CAFTA) and unilateral trade programs (e.g. the Generalized System of Preferences) on respect for worker rights, using standards developed by the International Labor Organization and adequate enforcement measures. Fundamentally, the global trading system (e.g. currently governed by the World Trade Organization) must be based on fair and equal rules that protect workers as well as as consumers and the environment.

On this project, USLEAP coordinates with Latin American unions, U.S. non-governmental organizations, and U.S. trade unions.