tivist groups that work toward improving the situation of the poor through organizing, strikes, protests, and other activities (Batstone, 1991).
For the most part, however, the labor situation in Latin America, as in other developing countries, is not a good one. Despite the guarantees supposedly built into new free trade agreements, it is clear that most of the countries in this region are not sufficiently stable democracies which are willing, and able, to guarantee human rights, political rights, or worker's rights.
In some respects, NAFTA and other more recent trade agreements are actually built on the availability of low wage, unprotected, labor. U.S. labor unions fought vigorously against NAFTA, noting that its passage meant the loss of jobs for their workers. It is estimated that over a half billion new workers will enter the labor pool during this decade, with most of them from low wage, non union, developing countries (Hage, 1994). As a consequence, workers in Latin American countries are likely to be in direct competition with U.S. workers, including legal and illegal immigrants from Latin America.
One result is that American trade unionists have attempted to export unions to other countries. Free trade has provided the impetus for labor to move strongly out of the U.S. and into the global arena. Labor has reemphasized a global outlook, attempting to introduce its methods into countries that are unorganized. However, the climate in many of those countries is not very hospitable, as evidenced by the periodic killings of organizers throughout the world, including in countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. As a consequence, most of labor's efforts have been concentrated in such countries as Canada and Mexico which provide better opportunities, more highly educated workers, and the potential for better wages and benefits (McGinn and Moody, 1993).
There is clearly some movement toward change, however, at l...