Advancing labour mobility in trade agreements. The lost opportunity in the Trans-Pacific Partnership

• Pages: 58-73
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JITLP-06-2018-0025
• Date: 04 April 2019
• Published date: 04 April 2019
• Author: Meredith B. Lilly
• Subject Matter: Strategy

Advancing labour mobility

in trade agreements

The lost opportunity in the

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Meredith B. Lilly

Norman Paterson School of International Affairs,

Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –Labour mobility is increasingly recognized as an important component of a globalized

international trading system. This paper aims to examine the role of temporary entry commitments in

internationaltrade agreements toward facilitatingglobal labour mobility.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper traces three decades of temporary entry provisions in

international trade agreements signed by the USA and Canada, beginning with their bilateral Canada–US

Free Trade Agreementand culminating in the Trans-Pacif‌ic Partnership(TPP).

Findings –The paper f‌inds that while many countries have continued to liberalizetheir temporary entry

commitments in various trade agreements,the USA has reversed course in the previous decade, hampering

internationalprogress. Meanwhile, Canada has pursuedever greater labour mobility provisionswith most of

its tradingpartners.

Practical implications –The unique roles played by the USA, Canada and other trading partners in

advancing a coherent international labour mobility agenda are considered. To continue to advance labour

mobilityin trade agreements moving forward,policy alternatives to the “all”or“nothing”approaches pursued

by Canadaand the USA are suggested.

Originality/value –To the author’s knowledge,this paper is the f‌irst to formally evaluate labour mobility

in the TPP and the only paper to outline the evolution of temporary entry in the US vs Canadian trade

agreementsover three decades.

Keywords Canada, US,GATS Mode 4, Labour mobility, Temporaryentry, Trans-Pacif‌icPartnership

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Labour mobility is increasingly recognized as an important component of the international

trading system. While the past century has seen an enormous liberalization of the rules

governing the movement of goods and capital through various international trade

agreements, the other major factorof production –labour –has not liberalized to nearly the

same degree (Hugo, 2008). Globalcompanies and investors regard the ability to move senior

employees and knowledge specialists around the world as essential to their business

The author gratefully acknowledges support to present this paper at the International Agricultural

Trade Research Consortium 2017 Annual Meeting, and helpful feedback provided by its members.

Also, recognized the funding support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In

addition, the author thanks for helpful comments received from two anonymous reviewers and

participants of Ful bright Canada’s TPP workshop at the Univer sity of Hawaii at Manoa, February

2017.

JITLP

18,2

58

Received28 June 2018

Revised3 December 2018

Accepted16 January 2019

Journalof International Trade

Lawand Policy

Vol.18 No. 2, 2019

pp. 58-73

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1477-0024

DOI 10.1108/JITLP-06-2018-0025

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-0024.htm

processes (Richardson,2016). Services trade is heavily reliant on such skilled labour, making

the advancement oflabour mobility in trade policy imperative moving forward.

Despite this, facilitating labour mobility through trade and immigration policy remains

one of the most controversial and resisted aspects of global integration (Hufbauer and

Stephenson, 2007;Hugo, 2008). Since the 2008 global f‌inancial crisis, this resistance has

become further entrenched by rising anti-globalization and anti-immigration sentiment in

parts of the Western world. Advocating for greater labour mobility is diff‌icult for political

leaders in such a context, who viewtheir primary obligations as protecting domestic jobs for

their citizens ratherthan furthering the interests of foreign workersor their employers.

Nevertheless, many of these same Westerneconomies are facing demographic pressures,

which compel them to consider the role of immigration in addressing future labour market

shortages. Population aging in countries such as the USA, Canada and much of Western

Europe will result in highold-age dependency ratios (number of persons aged 65 or over,per

100 working-aged persons), which will challenge the capacity of governments to f‌inance

social programs. Although increasing automation of routine tasks may eventually reduce

pressure to attract low-skilled immigrants, it is likely that these countries will work to

attract large numbers of high-skilled immigrants over the long-term (Chanda, 2016;

Edmonston, 2016;UN,2016).

Although the importance of international labour mobility in addressing such labour

shortages is widely acknowledged, less is known about labour mobility provisions in

international trade agreements. This paper explores the evolution of temporary entry

chapters in trade agreements over time and culminating in the Trans-Pacif‌ic Partnership

(TPP). Canada and the USA offer interestingcase studies for the exploration of these issues.

Since agreeing to a single set of rules in this regard via the Canada–US Free Trade

Agreement nearly 30 years ago, the two countries have followed divergent paths toward

temporary entry in subsequent trade agreements. In total, more than 45 countries have

f‌inalized temporary entry provisions in their trade agreements with either the USA or

Canada. In the absence of meaningful multilateral progress under broader international

frameworks such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), this series of

modern trade agreements heavily inf‌luence international standardsfor temporary entry for

the twenty-f‌irst century.

I argue that both in its original12-country form and the subsequent 11-country pact that

was ultimately f‌inalized without the USA, the TPP represents a missed opportunity to

advance global labour mobility for the twenty-f‌irstcentury. As demonstrated, this failure is

largely due to the intractable position of US negotiators over the TPP’s labour migration

chapter, Temporary Entry for Business Persons, provisions that were never revisited,

following the USA’s exit fromthe agreement.

To better understand the dynamics involved, this paper evaluates the temporary entry

commitments undertaken by each TPP partner including the USA. The history of

temporary entry commitments bythe USA vs Canada in previous trade agreements is then

evaluated and exemplif‌ies how the two countries have diverged in their approaches over

time. To my knowledge, this paper is the f‌irst to consider these issues for the TPP and to

offer a complete review of the evolution of temporary entry in Canadian vs US trade

agreements to better understand the broader consequences for the international trading

system.

Previous literature on temporary entry provisions in trade agreements

Workers covered by temporary entry provisions in trade agreements include high-skilled

workers with advanced training and education, normally at the post-secondary level.

Labour

mobility

in trade

agreements

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