Note published on March 23 in El Economista, Empresas [Companies] Section by María del Pilar Martínez.
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One of the campaign promises made by the former leader of the Boston Building and Construction Trades Council was to protect unions and seek that the minimum federal wage be raised in that country to 15 dollars per hour.
Marty Walsh, Mayor of Boston, was confirmed as Secretary of Labor by the United States Senate, in a vote of 68 to 29, becoming the first union leader to head said department in more than four decades.
Part of the commitments established by President Joe Biden in his campaign was to protect unions and seek that the minimum federal wage be raised in that country to 15 dollars per hour.
“I believe that we must act with urgency to face this moment – the pandemic – and strengthen and empower our workforce while we rebuild”, Walsh told senators in his confirmation hearing last month.
Specialists of the Labor Observatory for Mexico’s Labor Reform stated that Secretary Walsh, who was the head of one of the most relevant union groups, Boston Building and Construction Trades Council, has ample experience in the labor/union world of the U.S. and received support from various unions during his appointment process.
Additionally, he has said that the strengthening of labor rights in the U.S. is a high priority “particularly within this process of economic reactivation. He has also said that the implementation of the labor provisions of the USMCA will be high priority”, said Alfonso Bouzas, a member of the Labor Observatory.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Martínez, partner at D&M Abogados, said that that the rapprochement that can happen between organizations and the government of Joe Biden is confirmed, because even the AFL-CIO, led by Richard Trumka, has stated that they will seek the fulfillment of the trade agreement in regard to labor matters in order to take jobs to the United States.
He said that in a recent webinar on “Labor Challenges, 2021” for Mexico, lawyers from this country stated that, as part of the agenda of the United States government, it will supervise and verify compliance with the trade agreement, particularly with Chapter 23.
There are sectors, he recalled, that will have to be on the lookout for the labor policy to be announced; according to the USMCA, certain industries that will be under closer scrutiny were included, such as the automotive and the aerospace industries and the central point “is verifying salaries and compliance with legitimate collective bargaining.”
