Noam Chomsky Quotes

In Illinois, we've seen job losses from agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA. Those agreements didn't help American workers - and they haven't brought improvements to the lives of workers in other countries, either.

We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations.

Union busting has become a major industry with more than a thousand consulting firms teaching companies how to prevent workers from organizing and how to get rid of existing unions.

I do think there would be a receptivity to somebody who campaigned in a straightforward, cohesive way, supporting an increase in the minimum wage, being for universal health care for all Americans, and opposing trade agreements like NAFTA.

NAFTA, supported by the Secretary cost, us 800,000 jobs nationwide, tens of thousands of jobs in the Midwest. Permanent normal trade relations with China cost us millions of jobs. Look, I was on a picket line in early 1990's against NFATA because you didn't need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour.

Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.

But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.

Mexico is the only country in the world that has a trade agreement with United States and Canada, and at the same time has one with Europe. These are the two largest markets in the world. By the same token, Mexico has one of the most open economies.

I think actually what I'm going to do when I'm done and take my next vacation, is I'm going to go over and start unions in Japan. I'm going to unionize Japan. Because the way they work those crews is so criminal. There's no overtime, so they can just keep going.

These agreements should be free trade. They aren’t free trade.

Do not worry about the side agreements on labor. They are too full of loopholes to pose any threat.

We could not get NAFTA passed today with the current Congress…. We’ve got to combine trade liberalization with a broad-based sharing of the fruits of our productivity.

In China, the Communist Party’s suppression of free trade unions keeps cotton workers’ wages down, just as British law in the early 1800s saw to it that men and women who abandoned their ill-paid jobs and ran away could be jailed for breach of contract.

I am all in favor of growing the American economy and engaging in trade with the world, but not at the expense of American workers. The North American Free Trade Agreement is a perfect example of this. Ask the textile workers of North Carolina how NAFTA worked out for them - if you can find any.

The effect of Bill Clinton's NAFTA and Hillary Clinton's Colombian Free Trade Agreement has been devastating to Michigan and most of the rest of the country, and accounts for the appeal of Donald Trump.

I do think we need to hold countries accountable who violate trade agreements that are already in place. We need to get stronger about enforcement, that in the future if we strike a trade agreement, toughening up labor standards and environmental standards and enforcement standards is something we absolutely need to do.

The overtime rule was frankly diluted in 2004 by a regulation put in place by the Bush administration.

I think a lot of scapegoating has been done on NAFTA. The reality is, a lot of the jobs have been lost mostly to technology. And that is something that happens well beyond the reach of NAFTA or any other trade agreement.

I would like to believe that TPP will lead to more exports and jobs for the American people. But history shows that big trade agreements - from NAFTA to the Korea Free Trade Agreement - have resulted in fewer American jobs, lower wages, and a bigger trade deficit.

We don't want to repeat the unintended consequences that surfaced following the NAFTA agreement.

If we have an agreement with a country like Mexico, that doesn't support or protect the rights of workers, that doesn't have the same environmental regulations, how can Canadians ever compete with that jurisdiction?

By mandating equal pay, the government erases the competitive advantage of those people who are willing to take less pay. In addition, employers are less willing to hire employees who they believe could subject them to increased liability.

Equal pay for equal work is a fundamental concept of labor agreements.

North Carolina's industrial workers have been crushed by Bill Clinton's signing of NAFTA supported by crooked Hillary Clinton.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is a continuation of other disastrous trade agreements, like NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China.