Towards Effective Transnational Labor Solidarity between NAFTA North and NAFTA South

Abstract

U.S. political scientist Dale Hathaway’s article originated in his decision in the mid1990s to tackle the internationalist tasks integral to radical politics in the post-NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) era. Like his book Allies across the Border (2000), it breathes a spirit of militancy and heart-felt commitment to the struggles of working and middle class peoples in today’s world. As bee ts the new Labor History’s forum format, the piece eschews cautiously balanced judgments anchored in an impregnable structure of academic argument. Instead, Hathaway offers bold if schematic political ree ections about a pressing issue of general importance—the unionization of “runaway” shops in Mexico—and a straightforward partisan advocacy for one voice, the Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT), within Mexico’s massive and heterogeneous labor movement.