Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

ILAB Press Release: LABOR DEPARTMENT TO HOLD A PUBLIC FORUM AS PART OF NAFTA CONSULTATIONS WITH MEXICO [02/22/1996] [02/22/1996]

For more information call: (202) 219-6373

The U.S. Department of Labor will host a public forum in San Francisco Tuesday, Feb. 27, to allow an exchange of views on a labor dispute over the July 1994 closure of La Conexion Familiar, a subsidiary of the Sprint Corp. The forum is part of a three-step agreement reached between the U.S. and Mexico under procedures laid out in the labor side agreement to NAFTA.

Deputy Under Secretary of Labor for International Affairs Joaquin F. Otero will conduct the proceedings. The focus of the one-day public forum will be the effects of sudden plant closings on the principle of freedom of association and the right of workers to organize. Participants will include the Sprint Corp., the Communication Workers of America, other business and union groups, workers formerly employed at the La Conexion Familiar facility and delegates from Mexico and Canada.

The forum is one element of a three-step plan which resulted from ministerial consultations between Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich and Mexican Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare Javier Bonilla. Secretary Bonilla requested the consultations after the Mexican National Administrative Office (NAO) reviewed a complaint filed with it by the Telephone Workers Union of Mexico. That complaint, submitted Feb. 9, 1995, alleged that La Conexion Familiar was closed in violation of U.S. labor law to thwart union organizing by the facilities telemarketing employees. Most of those former employees are Hispanic. In the U.S., the National Labor Relations Board handled the case and an NLRB administrative law judge issued a decision last August.

The other two elements of the plan are that Reich will keep Bonilla informed of any other legal developments in this case in the U.S. and that the Labor Secretariat will study the effects of sudden plant closings on the principle of freedom of association and the right to organize in the three NAFTA countries. The study is to be completed by mid-June. The Labor Secretariat, based in Dallas and staffed by Mexicans, Canadians and Americans, was established as part of the NAFTA labor side agreement.

The review of complaints and the conduct of ministerial consultations are provided for in the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). The NAALC is the labor side agreement to NAFTA. Each NAFTA signatory country -- the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- has established its own NAO to administer the side agreement.

The forum, open to the public and the media, will be held Feb. 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the ANA Hotel San Francisco. Those registered with the U.S. NAO will speak on the issue of the effects of sudden plant closings on the freedom of association and the right to organize.

The public notice of the forum was published in the Jan. 26 Federal Register.

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.