MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The labor commission in Mexico's lower house has approved a workers' rights bill that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi considers key to winning over Democrats wary of a revamped trade pact to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Pelosi last week called on Mexico to see through the legislation, saying U.S. lawmakers could not even take up the issue unless Mexico put new laws in place to protect workers.
Democratic lawmakers in Washington say the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) must ensure workers in Mexico have the right to organize, a step that would require new Mexican labor laws. They believe a major weakness of NAFTA was that it allowed Mexican wages to stagnate.
The workers' rights bill was approved by the labor commission in Mexico's lower house of Congress with 19 votes on Wednesday. One legislator voted against it while another abstained. It was scheduled for a vote in the full house Thursday and could land in the Senate as soon as next week.
After Pelosi's comments, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he does want to give the United States any motive to reopen negotiations of the pact, which wound up last year.
"It is in our benefit to have this treaty, and for there to be no excuse for opening up negotiations again," he said in a regular news briefing Thursday.