Almost eighty years before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Ricardo Flores Magon--revolutionary, anarchist, labor organizer and expatriate nationalist--challenged the prevailing social order of both Mexico and the United States. Magon predicted that if Mexican workers failed to organize and shake off the yoke of capitalism, the nation would soon be dominated by foreign economic interests. And American workers, he warned, would find their firms and factories employing low-wage laborers in Mexico. Magon's message: "Mexico for Mexicans."
Organized labor,...

As companies increasingly look to the global market for capital, cheaper commodities and labor, and lower production costs, the impact on Mexican and American workers and labor unions is significant. National boundaries and the laws of governments that regulate social relations between laborers and management are less relevant in the era of globalization, rendering ineffective the traditional union strategies of pressuring the state for reform. Focusing especially on the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (the first...