USMCA-ME: Pablo
Member of USMCA Monitoring and Enforcement Division (USMCA-ME)
One of the most important lessons that I have learned from my years of living abroad is that communities thrive when their members are able to access decent work opportunities and their labor rights are fully protected. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, I saw how adults with dignified jobs were able to access health care for their families and send their children to school instead of work. During my time in Latin America, I have observed how the ability to organize and bargain collectively can be a powerful tool to lift communities out of poverty and build freer and democratic societies. Unfortunately, I also have witnessed the opposite.
I strongly believe that every worker should enjoy decent and safe working conditions, free of any type of discrimination, and governments should leverage every tool at their disposal to accomplish that. This conviction motivated me to join the U.S. government 14 years ago, and specifically brought me to work at the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB).
As the Lead Labor Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, I serve as an authoritative expert to the U.S. government on labor and employment issues in Mexico related to ILAB’s mandates and mission priorities. As part of this process, I engage on a daily basis with other U.S. agencies, Government of Mexico, workers, businesses, and civil society groups on implementation of the Mexican labor law reform, including by supporting implementation of technical assistance projects and assisting the new U.S. government Interagency Labor Committee under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). As I carry out this exciting task, I get to do it alongside talented and committed public servants who share my passion to make the world a much better place.
TNI: Emma
Division Chief of Trade Negotiations & Implementation Division (TNI)
Growing up in California’s Central Valley, I regularly saw migrant farm workers pick fruit and vegetables in large agricultural fields during the middle of the sweltering summer. The food those workers picked ended up on my dinner plate -- and I thought it was wrong that I benefited from their back-breaking work. I later realized that like migrant farm workers in California, people all over the world face grueling and exploitive working conditions but do not have the tools or voice to improve those conditions, despite being the drivers of their local economies. I decided to go to law school to study human rights law to help advocate on behalf of those workers. However, I soon realized that it is almost impossible to enforce human rights in countries that do not already protect them through their own legal systems. It became clear to me that global economic rules – and in particular international trade and investment – are one of the few ways to ensure governments and companies better protect those rights because they create economic incentives for compliance.
Creating that economic incentive is exactly what I get to do at the Office of Trade and Labor Affairs in the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs. A number of U.S. trade agreements and preference programs require trade partner countries to agree to meet certain worker rights obligations, a key component of human rights, recognizing that protection of worker rights is critical to fair trade and supporting sustainable economic growth. To ensure trade partners are meeting these U.S. trade obligations, I regularly monitor worker rights in developing countries and work directly with governments to take steps to improve those rights. Where countries are consistently failing to protect worker rights despite this type of engagement, I work with U.S. interagency partners, including with the Office of U.S. Trade Representative and the State Department, to enforce U.S. trade programs and limit countries’ and exporters’ preferential access to the U.S. market, ideally creating an incentive for governments to improve worker rights in their countries. For example, the Office of Trade and Labor Affairs worked with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the President to withdraw trade benefits from Bangladesh in 2013 after the U.S. determined that the government of Bangladesh consistently failed to protect the rights of its workers, which culminated in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory that killed over a thousand garment workers. Now, as part of my job, my team and I monitor working conditions in Bangladesh by keeping in regular contact with labor unions and civil society organizations, and the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka. We also engage directly with the government of Bangladesh to urge them to take steps to protect workers and improve working conditions, and work with the U.S. interagency to ensure that Bangladesh takes those steps before it regains trade privileges.
TAC: Marie
Member of Technical Assistance
and Cooperation Division
(TAC)
I am an International Relations Officer at the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), U.S. Department of Labor, and I love my job. My team oversees and monitors technical assistance projects involving labor rights in countries like Haiti, Cambodia, Vietnam, Jordan, Georgia, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Our objective, in collaboration with the grantees implementing the technical assistance projects , is to provide technical assistance to governments, employers and civil society to promote compliance with the labor requirements of U.S. trade agreements and preference programs. I serve as a project manager for one of the technical assistance programs in Haiti. The project monitors factories in the apparel industry in Haiti to identify producers non-compliant with core international labor standards in accordance with the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act (HOPE). HOPE is a trade preference program that allows duty-free treatment for apparel exports from Haiti to the United States. Being able to work with producers, to assist them in addressing violations, has been challenging but rewarding. I have always wanted to be in a career where I am making a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable populations. This position has fulfilled my childhood dream as well as helped me fulfill ILAB’s mission to promote a fair global playing field for workers in the United States and around the world through trade enforcement.
Ops: Carmen
Member of
Operations Team
(OPs)
As an administrative specialist in the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB)’s Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA), I perform a wide variety of administrative operations. As a team member, I enjoy helping the staff with their international and local travel needs, troubleshooting electronic travel system issues, expediting the document clearance process, procuring supplies and training needs for OTLA staff, and always being a team player who can pitch in whenever the office need me.
I am originally from Colombia and received a B.A. in Economics from Simon Bolivar University in Barranquilla. I moved to the U.S. in 1997 and started working for the federal government in June 2006. I always wanted to work in the international field, Since my first language is Spanish, I enjoy translating documents from English to Spanish and vice versa.
My first job at the U.S. Department of Labor in the Office of Working Compensation Programs gave me a glimpse of the essential services that the government provides for the American people. I also worked for nine years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as the Assistant to the Commissioner.
While at BLS, I kept looking for opportunities to work at the Bureau of International Labor Affairs and volunteered for several months reviewing the Spanish translation of the BLS quarterly online Occupational Outlook Handbook.
I was excited when I started a detail in March 2017 with OTLA. After working for nine months for the Operations Team, I acquired the necessary skills to obtain a permanent position as International Administrative Specialist in May 2018.
It is a great honor and satisfaction to work for OTLA and to provide assistance to a team of dedicated professionals that have an important mission, ensuring that U.S. trade agreements are fair for American workers and workers worldwide.