ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses that the differing effects that North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has had on mobilising three distinct categories of socio-political actors: organised labour, the environmental movement, and indigenous communities. Staggering wage differentials across the North-South divide in continentalised production systems are largely the product of the weak bargaining position of Mexican workers who are hamstrung by corrupt unions and persistent violations of labour rights. The weakness of continent-wide indigenous organisation is related to the lack of institutional structure affecting indigenous peoples within NAFTA. The declaration of the Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas linked the exclusion of indigenous peoples from NAFTA to violations of their human rights and called for their inclusion in the negotiation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The critical problem of the capacity of civil society organisations forces many social agents to approach organised labour for financial support, and may result in an increasingly dependent and one-sided relationship.
