After NAFTA: A New Abolitionism

Labor’s recent, unsuccessful campaign against the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) tapped a deep well of rank-and-file anger and frustration. For nearly twenty years now, trade unionists and other working people have borne the brunt of an industrial restructuring accompanied by the destruction of millions of jobs, a continuing decline in real hourly earnings for non-supervisory employees, an across-the-board assault on traditional work practices and contractual protections, more temporary and part-time employment, increased responsibility without any significant increase in control, longer hours, rising insecurity, and a precipitous drop in trade-union membership. The proposed agreement among the United States, Canada, and Mexico provided a convenient and obvious target for outrage. Here, at last, was a chance to shout “No!” Unlike the countless, supposedly “private” corporate decisions that have played the greatest part in the ongoing restruc...