Inclusion of labour provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs) has become increasingly more commonplace by the international community since 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its labour side agreement, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), came into effect. The author explores whether and how labour provisions in post-NAALC FTAs can be utilized to improve the lives of working women. She examines and compares significant advances in the development and application of labour norms in FTAs by the governments of Canada and the United States. Section I of the article is a comparison of the structure and contents of labour provisions and complaint procedures of post-NAFTA US and Canadian FTAs. Section II is a discussion of reports and developments in the application of US post-NAALC FTA labour provisions between 2009 and 2016. Section III is an examination of US and Canadian FTA labour provisions from a gender perspective. While the US government has more experience than the Canadian government in investigating and responding to public petitions under FTA labour provisions, definitional shortcomings in US FTAs present a challenge to using them as tools to improve working women's lives. In contrast, gender protections in Canadian FTA labour provisions have not yet been tested by petitioners but could serve as a useful tool in improving working women's lives because they contain clear protections for equal pay for equal work for men and women and for the elimination of workplace discrimination based on sex and other grounds.