Fin(d)ing Our Way on Trade and Labor Standards?

With the impasse over whether and how to link labor standards and trade agreements stretching into its eighth year, attention has turned to "monetary assessments," or fines, as alternatives to trade sanctions. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee in early March 2001, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick suggested that fines would be worth considering. Both the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and a similar agreement accompanying the Canada-Chile free trade agreement provide for fines to address a "persistent pattern of failure" by a member country to enforce its own labor laws.