Fixes Schmixes!

Panamanian union leaders are pushing back on proposals by the outgoing president to fast track labor law changes to pave way for the pending Panama FTA.

La Estrella reports: (Spanish only):

Mariano Mena, a leader of CONATO [the largest Panamanian union federation], stated that although the changes proposed by the Obama administration are good, he worries that this opening be used as a smokescreen include [other] alterations that are damaging to the Panamanian worker. "This is the perfect pretext that had previously been lacking to initiate [anti-worker] labor reforms", he added.

Looks like the Mena and CONATO are learning from the experiences their Peruvian counterparts, who saw labor law 'improvements' and 'fixes' under the Peru FTA translate into rollback of hard-won rights and protections, a net-negative for Peruvian workers.

Workers won't get fooled again!

(FYI - Above photo above is NOT of Mariano Mena, but IS used courtesy of Flickr user Steven(Esteban) J Golliday under a Creative Commons license)