Scott,
Insider Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act....
The following are excerpts, for the complete text - clink on the link at the end. This will take you to the Council on Foreign Relations web site.
The other link is to Judicial Watch - they made the information public through the Freedom of Information Act. You can find much more info here. I haven't had the time to explore it all -yet.
Note: the construction industry was specifically addressed as one of the 15 sectors in the North American Union. There should be additional information about it somewhere in these documents.
- Alan
Increase Labor Mobility within North America
People are North America’s greatest asset. Goods and services cross
borders easily; ensuring the legal transit of North American workers
has been more difficult. Experience with the NAFTA visa system
suggests that its procedures need to be simplified, and such visas should
be made available to a wider range of occupations and to additional
categories of individuals such as students, professors, bona fide frequent
visitors, and retirees.
To make the most of the impressive pool of skill and talent within
North America, the three countries should look beyond the NAFTA
visa system. The large volume of undocumented migrants from Mexico
within the United States is an urgent matter for those two countries
to address. A long-term goal should be to create a ‘‘North American
preference’’—new rules that would make it much easier for employees
to move and for employers to recruit across national boundaries within
the continent. This would enhance North American competitiveness,
increase productivity, contribute to Mexico’s development, and address
one of the main outstanding issues on the Mexican-U.S. bilateral agenda.
Canada and the United States should consider eliminating restrictions
on labor mobility altogether and work toward solutions that, in the
long run, could enable the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico
as well.
WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW
• Expand temporary migrant worker programs. Canada and the
United States should expand programs for temporary labor migration
from Mexico. For instance, Canada’s successful model for managing
seasonal migration in the agricultural sector should be expanded to
other sectors where Canadian producers face a shortage of workers
and Mexico may have a surplus of workers with appropriate skills.
Canadian and U.S. retirees living in Mexico should be granted
working permits in certain fields, for instance as English teachers.
• Implement the Social Security Totalization Agreement
negotiated between the United States and Mexico. This agree-
ment would recognize payroll contributions to each other’s systems,
thus preventing double taxation.
WHAT WE SHOULD DO BY 2010
• Create a ‘‘North American preference.’’ Canada, the United
States, and Mexico should agree on streamlined immigration and
labor mobility rules that enable citizens of all three countries to
work elsewhere in North America with far fewer restrictions than
immigrants from other countries. This new system should be both
broader and simpler than the current system of NAFTA visas. Special
immigration status should be given to teachers, faculty, and students
in the region.
• Move to full labor mobility between Canada and the United
States. To make companies based in North America as competitive
as possible in the global economy, Canada and the United States
should consider eliminating all remaining barriers to the ability of
their citizens to live and work in the other country. This free flowof people would offer an important advantage to employers in both
countries by giving them rapid access to a larger pool of skilled labor,
and would enhance the well-being of individuals in both countries
by enabling them to move quickly to where their skills are needed.
In the long term, the two countries should work to extend this
policy to Mexico as well, though doing so will not be practical until
wage differentials between Mexico and its two North American
neighbors have diminished considerably.
• A North American Advisory Council. To ensure a regular
injection of creative energy into the various efforts related to North
American integration, the three governments should appoint an
independent body of advisers. This body should be composed of
eminent persons from outside government, appointed to staggered
multiyear terms to ensure their independence. Their mandate would
be to engage in creative exploration of new ideas from a North
American perspective and to provide a public voice for North
America. A complementary approach would be to establish private
bodies that would meet regularly or annually to buttress North
American relationships, along the lines of the Bilderberg or Wehr-
kunde conferences, organized to support transatlantic relations.
... I strongly support the recommendation that the
three governments coordinate their approach regarding unfair trade
practices, I would appoint the recommended Trinational Competition
Commission now (not in 2010) and assign to it the responsibility of
deciding how best to achieve a unified approach to unfair trade, exter-
nally and internally. Phased suspensions constitute one approach, but
the commission will also need to consider rules to apply in the event
that subsidies are granted by a government outside North America or
by a local, state, or central government inside North America.
Carla A. Hills
joined by
Wendy K. Dobson,
Allan Gotlieb, and
Jeffrey J. Schott
Gary C. Hufbauer,
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
http://www.judicialwatch.org/SPP
No comments:
Post a Comment