ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the agenda by analysing in detail the submissions filed under North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). It discusses a bottom-up perspective by focusing on the efforts of cross-border coalitions of labour movements and labour rights activists to give the complaint channel substance. In 1993, newly elected 'New Democrat' US president Bill Clinton negotiated an institutional compromise on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that reached out to his party's base of labour unions and environmentalists. Through the mechanism of side agreements, Clinton maintained the complex trade-investment agreement in the core NAFTA, while enticing enough swing Democrats in the US Congress to secure passage of the NAFTA-implementing legislation. Finally, NAALC's intergovernmental set-up has deepened cross-border collaboration over time, especially among US and Mexican labour activists. A number of labour movements and rights groups have developed new cross-border contacts through this process.
