ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an evaluation of the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) labour accord and the submissions and cooperative activities it has spawned. North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC) falls short of the demands of organized labour in Canada and the US for a transnational regulatory regime. Its provisions for consultation and cooperation and its complaints process provide a limited opportunity for generation of new transnational norms and practices in labour relations. The interaction of the North American region with the global economy has produced greater complications for the trade-labour nexus. The growth of globalization alongside regionalization has imposed new constraints on the NAFTA region which may make deepening or strengthening of social accords like the NAALC even more unlikely. Advocates of global labour standards have sought a middle ground, promoting a basic set of guarantees modeled on those core elements of the International Labour Organisation charter which most states have ratified.
