This submission was filed with the U.S. NAO on June 13, 1996. It was submitted by three labor rights - human rights groups: the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), Human Rights Watch/Americas (HRW), and the Mexican National Association of Democratic Lawyers (ANAD). The submission raised issues of freedom of association for federal workers and questioned the impartiality of the labor tribunals reviewing these issues.
U.S. NAO Submission 9601 was accepted for review on July 29. A hearing was conducted on December 3, 1996, at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. A report, recommending ministerial consultations on the status of international treaties and constitutional provisions protecting freedom of association, was issued on January 27, 1997. Pursuant to the consultations, the Departments of Labor of Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. agreed to exchange sufficient publicly available information to permit a full examination of the issues raised in the submission. This included a seminar, open to the public, which was held in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 4, 1997.
On December 3, 1997, the submitters filed a request for reconsideration on the ground that some of the issues raised in the original submission were not adequately addressed by the NAO in its report. The NAO declined this request on the ground that the issues raised had been adequately reviewed.