For too long, debates over international trade have been dominated by corporate elites and economic ideologues, rather than rooted in the experiences of ordinary Americans. 

The Trade Stories Project allows people who have been affected by policies and institutions like NAFTA and the WTO to share their views on a matter crucial to the global economy. 

This includes displaced workers, farmers, small business owners and immigrants who have been typically excluded from the trade debate.

Hector de la Cueva

Mexico City, D.F., Mexico

Hector is the general coordinator of CILAS, the Center for Labor Investigation and Union Assessment. He is a former autoworker, who made products for Ford.

 Hear part of Hector's story...

“Free trade agreements function like transnational blackmail against workers.  They say to you—U.S. and Canadian workers—that if you don’t accept less rights and lower salaries, then your jobs will come to Mexico, or to other countries, like Honduras, Guatemala, wherever.  They tell us, the Mexican workers and South workers, that if we don’t accept our miserable salaries, very bad conditions and no rights, then the jobs will never come. 

“So they’ve introduced the competition between North and South workers.  In this competition, the companies are the only ones who win.  Now the competition is even worse, because it is South-to-South.  Now, of course, free trade policies mean that for workers in the South—Mexico, Honduras, China, India or wherever—the issue is who can work more for less.

“That is one of the ways in which free trade works out.  Since the beginning, we’ve believed that the more effective way to fight back and break this logic against working people is to bring together working people from different countries, North-to-South and South-to-South, to break the blackmail.

“The Mexican government, the companies and so on, say that U.S. workers and Mexican workers cannot have the same interests.  They say that U.S. workers want to protect their jobs.  That is why they’re trying to help you.  On the other side, they say that Mexican workers want to steal U.S. jobs.  But when unions and labor organizations meet, they discover that it is possible to defend the same interests. 

“Helping Mexican workers to have better rights and better conditions is good for U.S. workers.  It is also good for the Mexican workers, of course.  The Mexican government has always said that the bad salaries are Mexico’s ‘comparative advantage,’ and that if you ask for more, you’re playing the game of the protectionists in the United States.  But the only way to break this logic is working together.

“If the Ford Motor workers in the U.S., Mexico and Canada could bargain or negotiate or discuss working conditions together, then the company will not be able to deal with it.  It’s the same with all the companies.  So, we at CILAS thought that this track was important to break the perverse logic of free trade…

“I think it is the correct moment to reframe the old question about NAFTA.  At the beginning of the negotiations, people would ask, ‘Which country will win under NAFTA?’  After all these years, it’s clear that this question was wrong.  The question was, ‘Who will win and who will lose?’  Now it’s clear that the people lost and the rich companies won.”