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      Cómo el TLCAN arruinó la política de EE. UU.

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      [Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En mayo del año pasado, Marcus Carli, director de la fábrica Master Lock de Milwaukee, Wisconsin, convocó por sorpresa una reunión con la junta directiva del sindicato local 469 de United Auto Workers (UAW, por su sigla en inglés). Varios directivos del sindicato, que representa a los trabajadores de la planta, se reunieron con Carli y un ejecutivo de la empresa matriz de Master Lock en una pequeña sala de conferencias. Carli llevó a un guardia de seguridad. “Está aquí para protegerme”, les dijo Carli a los representantes sindicales. Cuando el guardia se sentó, Yolanda Nathan, la nueva presidenta del sindicato, se fijó en su pistola. “En ese momento pensé: ‘Ah, vamos a perder nuestro trabajo’”, dice. De inmediato, Carli confirmó sus peores temores. “La planta va a cerrar”, anunció. “Me dejó sin aliento”, dijo Nathan. “Nos quitó el aliento a todos”.Media hora más tarde, los trabajadores del primer turno de la planta fueron convocados a una reunión en la antigua cafetería. Una hilera de mesas separaba a los funcionarios de los trabajadores. “La planta va a cerrar”, repitió Carli. Se negó a aceptar preguntas. “Solo nos lanzaron la bomba”, dijo Jeremiah Hayes, quien trabajaba en la planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales de la empresa. Sobre todo, le molestó la barrera improvisada: “Era insultante. Nos sentíamos como animales”.Mike Bink, que empezó a trabajar en Master Lock en 1979, estaba desolado pero no sorprendido. Meses antes, un compañero cuyo trabajo consistía en fabricar placas de acero que se introducían en una máquina para fabricar un cuerpo de cerradura le dijo a Bink que ahora las placas se enviaban a la planta de Master Lock en Nogales, México. Esa fábrica se construyó en la década de 1990, no mucho después de que el presidente Bill Clinton promulgara el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, y la empresa eliminó más de 1000 de los casi 1300 puestos sindicales de Milwaukee. “La gente salió corriendo por la puerta”, dice Bink, que entonces era presidente del Local 469. “Pensaban que la planta estaba acabada”. Bink aguantó, pero el TLCAN cambió de manera radical el equilibrio de poder entre Master Lock y sus trabajadores. “Un supervisor de la planta decía cosas como: ‘Pónganse a trabajar o la empresa cerrará todos los puestos’”, recuerda Bink. “Tras la reducción de plantilla, el sindicato perdió su influencia”.En marzo, el cierre de las instalaciones donde se fabricaron cerraduras emblemáticas durante generaciones, representó la etapa final de la larga decadencia de Milwaukee como potencia industrial, parte de un fenómeno mayor, impulsado por el TLCAN, que se ha producido en todo el país, especialmente en los estados del Cinturón del Óxido. El TLCAN eliminó los aranceles sobre el comercio entre los signatarios del tratado —Canadá, México y Estados Unidos— y permitió la libre circulación de capitales e inversiones extranjeras. Marcó el comienzo de una era de acuerdos de libre comercio que llevaron productos baratos a los consumidores y generaron una gran riqueza para los inversionistas y el sector financiero, pero también aumentó la desigualdad de ingresos, debilitó a los sindicatos y aceleró el vaciamiento de la base industrial de Estados Unidos.Mike Bink, expresidente de Local 469, que representaba a los trabajadores sindicales de Master Lock, trabajó en la planta durante 44 años. Lyndon French para The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Has the Spread of Tipping Reached Its Limit? Don’t Count on It.

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      Americans are being asked to tip more often and in more places than ever before: at fast food counters and corner stores, at auto garages and carwashes, even at self-checkout kiosks. That has rankled many customers and divided both employers and tipped workers.It may soon get worse. Both major-party presidential candidates have embraced proposals to eliminate income taxes on tips, a move that would, in effect, subsidize tipping and prompt more businesses to rely on it.Economists across the political spectrum have panned the tax idea, arguing that it is unfair — favoring one set of low-wage workers over others — and could have unintended consequences. Even some tipped workers and groups that represent them are skeptical, worrying that over the long term the policy could result in lower pay.But the debate alone underscores how service-sector workers have emerged from the pandemic as an economically and politically potent force. The spread of tipping in recent years was, in part, a result of the intense demand for workers, and the leverage it gave them. The presidential candidates’ dueling proposals signal that they see the nation’s roughly four million tipped workers as a constituency worth wooing.“I do think it’s a reflection of this change in which people are finally hearing and recognizing that these workers matter,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, an advocacy organization. “Tipped workers had never seen their needs named in any way by any presidential candidate, ever.”Ms. Jayaraman isn’t a fan of the tax exemption idea, though she is optimistic that the attention being paid to the issue could lead to policies she considers more important. One is the elimination of the subminimum wage, which allows businesses in some states to pay workers as little as $2.13 an hour as long as they receive enough in tips to bring them up to the full minimum wage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Here’s Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters

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      Some of the best advice Democrats have received recently came from Bill Clinton in his speech at the Democratic National Convention.First, he warned against hubris: “We’ve seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn’t happen, when people got distracted by phony issues or overconfident.” That’s something that any Clinton understands in his — or her — gut.Second, related and even more important, he cautioned against demeaning voters who don’t share liberal values.“I urge you to meet people where they are,” said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. “I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.”That’s critical counsel because too often since 2016, the liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump as a racist and bigot. This has been politically foolish, for it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gaza Debate Reopens Divisions Between Left-Wing Workers and Union Leaders

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      Last week’s Democratic National Convention surfaced differences over the war in Gaza that could widen fissures between labor activists and union officials.When members of the Chicago Teachers Union showed up to march at the Democratic National Convention last week, many expressed two distinct frustrations.The first was over the war in Gaza, which they blamed for chewing up billions of dollars in aid to Israel that they said could be better spent on students, in addition to a staggering loss of life. The second was disappointment with their parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, which they felt should go further in pressuring the Biden administration to rein in Israel’s military campaign.“I was disappointed in the resolution on Israel and Palestine because it didn’t call for an end to armed shipments,” said Kirstin Roberts, a preschool teacher who attended the protest, alluding to a statement that the parent union endorsed at its convention in July.Since last fall, many rank-and-file union members have been outspoken in their criticism of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,000 people and took about 250 hostages. The leaders of many national unions have appeared more cautious, at times emphasizing the precipitating role of Hamas.“We were very careful about what a moral stance was and also what the implications of every word we wrote was,” the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said of the resolution her union recently adopted.In some ways, this divide reflects tensions over Israel and Gaza that exist within many institutions — like academia, the media and government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Floats I.V.F. Coverage Mandate While Campaigning in Michigan

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      The week after Democrats spent much of their national convention attacking him over his position on abortion rights and reproductive health, former President Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would require insurance companies or the federal government to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization treatments if he is elected in November.Mr. Trump’s announcement — made in an NBC interview, a speech in Michigan and a town hall in Wisconsin — came with little detail about his proposal or how he might address its cost. For one cycle, the treatments can cost up to $20,000 or more. But he has been trying to rebrand himself to voters on reproductive access and abortion rights, issues that have cost Republicans at the ballot box.Mr. Trump, who often on the campaign trail has bragged about his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, last week on social media declared that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” a phrase used by abortion-rights advocates.The post appeared to be an effort by Mr. Trump to cast himself as more of a political moderate on abortion, an issue that could hurt him in November.On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign accused Mr. Trump of trying to run from his record on abortion access.“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, said in a statement. “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, I.V.F. is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Wall Street Learned About Last Week’s Labor Data Before the Public

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      The Labor Department provided insight into a recent lapse in which revised payrolls data were given out à la carte before they were online.Banks and research firms that serve hedge funds managed to confirm a closely-watched economic data last week as much as 20 minutes before the data was posted online, giving them a possible jump on financial market trading — the latest in a series of lapses at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Now, details into what happened are beginning to emerge.A technical issue prevented the data, which showed a large downward revision to job growth in 2023 and early 2024, from publishing on the agency’s website at 10 a.m. as scheduled last Wednesday, according to details provided by the Department of Labor.In response, agency technology staff began to load the data onto the site manually. At that point, starting a bit after 10:10 a.m., other bureau staff could see the update on the website — even though it wouldn’t be visible to the public until 10:32 a.m. And bureau staff began replying to people, including Wall Street firms, who called or emailed with questions. That enabled some to get access to key data before others.It isn’t clear how many investors got early access to the data, or whether anyone actually traded on the information. The revisions ultimately did not have a huge effect on stock markets. But the fact that Wall Street funds that make money by betting on every minor move in economic data — including reports like this one — managed to access the figures before the public at large has raised serious questions about what happened.Part of the problem, according to the information provided by the department, is that the payroll revision data was not considered a “news release” like the monthly jobs data and inflation numbers. Those data are subject to strict to controls to avoid leaks. Instead, it was considered a “website release,” which has fewer guardrails.Unlike with a news release, the bureau had no backup plan to make sure there was a way to quickly push a website update out to the broader public, such as with prepared social media posts of data highlights.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Solingen, Germany, Becomes Reluctant Symbol of Migration Battles

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      After a stabbing attack that prosecutors say was committed by a Syrian who was rejected for asylum, the city of Solingen finds itself at the center of a longstanding debate.Two days after a deadly knife attack in the German city of Solingen, the youth wing of the far-right AfD party put out a call for supporters to stage a protest demanding the government do more to deport migrants denied asylum.The authorities had identified the suspect in the stabbing spree that killed three people and wounded eight others as a Syrian man who was in the country despite having been denied asylum and who prosecutors suspected had joined the Islamic State. The attack tore at the fabric of the ethnically diverse, working-class city in the country’s west.But even before the right-wing protests had begun on Sunday, scores of counterprotesters had gathered in front of the group home that housed the suspect and other refugees. They carried banners that read, “Welcome to refugees” and “Fascism is not an opinion, but a crime,” and railed against those who would use the attack to further inflame an already fraught national debate over immigration and refugees.The dueling protests — not unlike those recently in Britain — are emblematic of Germany’s longstanding tug of war over how to deal with a large influx of asylum seekers in recent years. The country needs immigration to bolster its work force, but the government often finds itself on the defensive against an increasingly powerful AfD.The party and its supporters are attempting to use the stabbing attack to bolster their broader anti-immigrant message, with some blaming the assault on “uncontrolled migration” even before the nationality of the suspect was known.“They are trying to use this tragedy to foment fear,” said Matthias Marsch, 67, a Solingen resident who was at Sunday’s counterprotest and worries about a rightward drift in society. “I’m here to stand against that.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More