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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-6373
The U.S. Department of Labor will host a public forum in
San Francisco Tuesday, Feb. 27, to allow an exchange of views on a labor
dispute over the July 1994 closure of La Conexion Familiar, a subsidiary of the
Sprint Corp. The forum is part of a three-step agreement reached between the
U.S. and Mexico under procedures laid out in the labor side agreement to NAFTA.
Deputy Under Secretary of Labor for International Affairs
Joaquin F. Otero will conduct the proceedings. The focus of the one-day public
forum will be the effects of sudden plant closings on the principle of freedom
of association and the right of workers to organize. Participants will include
the Sprint Corp., the Communication Workers of America, other business and
union groups, workers formerly employed at the La Conexion Familiar facility
and delegates from Mexico and Canada.
The forum is one element of a three-step plan which
resulted from ministerial consultations between Secretary of Labor Robert B.
Reich and Mexican Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare Javier Bonilla.
Secretary Bonilla requested the consultations after the Mexican National
Administrative Office (NAO) reviewed a complaint filed with it by the Telephone
Workers Union of Mexico. That complaint, submitted Feb. 9, 1995, alleged that
La Conexion Familiar was closed in violation of U.S. labor law to thwart union
organizing by the facilities telemarketing employees. Most of those former
employees are Hispanic. In the U.S., the National Labor Relations Board handled
the case and an NLRB administrative law judge issued a decision last
August.
The other two elements of the plan are that Reich will
keep Bonilla informed of any other legal developments in this case in the U.S.
and that the Labor Secretariat will study the effects of sudden plant closings
on the principle of freedom of association and the right to organize in the
three NAFTA countries. The study is to be completed by mid-June. The Labor
Secretariat, based in Dallas and staffed by Mexicans, Canadians and Americans,
was established as part of the NAFTA labor side agreement.
The review of complaints and the conduct of ministerial
consultations are provided for in the North American Agreement on Labor
Cooperation (NAALC). The NAALC is the labor side agreement to NAFTA. Each NAFTA
signatory country -- the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- has established its own NAO
to administer the side agreement.
The forum, open to the public and the media, will be held
Feb. 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the ANA Hotel San Francisco. Those
registered with the U.S. NAO will speak on the issue of the effects of sudden
plant closings on the freedom of association and the right to organize.
The public notice of the forum was published in the Jan.
26 Federal Register.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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