AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka met Monday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal to hash out labor’s concerns in ongoing discussions over President Donald Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA deal. Trumka also met Tuesday with the Congressional Progressive Caucus and assured members he and House leadership were now on the same page. Trumka told The Intercept he was happy with his conversations with leadership on getting enforceable labor standards included in the current text of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Asked if he thought the pact would come to the floor, Trumka said they weren’t there just yet. “We don’t have an agreement yet,” he said.

CPC Co-Chair Mark Pocan told The Intercept that Trumka “gave a very optimistic presentation” and said that he, Pelosi, and Neal “were absolutely in the same place” on labor’s concerns with the text as it stands and addressing them before it reaches the floor. Trumka expressed “confidence that if those aren’t addressed, the bill’s not coming to the floor,” Pocan said. The Intercept reported Tuesday morning that Rep. Cheri Bustos, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was pushing to bring the agreement to the House floor without fully satisfying demands from environmentalists, labor unions, and patient advocates concerned on drug pricing. Pocan said he asked Trumka about The Intercept’s reporting on Bustos’s strategy. “I can’t speak for Cheri. But what he presented from his conversation just yesterday with the speaker is that they’re very much aligned. He seemed very optimistic,” Pocan said. “Unless those labor issues aren’t resolved, then it’s difficult to see it come to the floor.” Pocan said that after Monday’s meeting, Pelosi and the AFL-CIO were “at the exact same spot” strategically. Bill Samuels, director of government affairs for the AFL-CIO, said that he and Trumka received “indirect assurances” during the meeting with leadership — which Bustos did not attend — that The Intercept report had “mischaracterized” Bustos’s position, and that she was on board with the labor union and leadership strategy.