NAFTA, International Migration and Labour Rights

Based on what is known or can be reasonably guessed from research, the extent to which trade generated through NAFTA will substitute for international migration must be highly qualified. As the evidence reviewed below indicates, international capital and trade flows arising from NAFTA may be expected to have contradictory effects on international migration. Over a period of one or two decades following NAFTA, emigration pressures from Mexico to the United States and from Central America to North America (including Mexico) are likely to rise. Later they may fall. During the period of rising emigration pressures, efforts by migrant-receiving nations (including Mexico with respect to Central America) to stop undocumented migration and control legal immigration will tend to have a negative impact on the rights of workers in all countries. High unemployment in sending countries will give the upper hand to capital and allow firms to set low wages and minimal work safety and health conditions. Undocumented migrants in receiving countries will go deeper into an invisible "underground" economy where labour standards are not applied. Their presence and working conditions will tend to undermine the rights of other workers in the receiving countries. Whether the NAFTA labour side-agreement or new trade accords with stronger labour-rights clauses can counter these trends remains unclear. There is a small body of research on the ways in which national labour markets are likely to respond to NAFTA. Macro-studies on this topic involve the specification and testing of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models that are based on many simplifying and arguably unrealistic assumptions. Whatever their limitations, results of such studies reinforce the conclusion of historical studies of trade and migration. They conclude that NAFTA should initially tend to increase international migration, particularly that between Mexico and the United States. Only later will international migration pressures subside. The underlying hypothesis is that after a period of up to 20 years or more of higher international migration, the flow between the two countries should begin to slow and eventually, after another period of years or perhaps decades, should fall below what would have otherwise been expected. The two phases of this long-term view may be termed the "migration hump" (after [Philip L. Martin] 1995) and the "migration slump" (my term). The hump refers to migration above that which woul