U.S. Complaints Aid Union Organizing Efforts In Mexico

It has been nearly two years since the United States began pressing Mexico over labor rights violations by using rapid dispute resolution methods contained in the US-Mexico Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement, Mark Stevenson reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The first complaint was filed in May 2021 about attempts by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) union to interfere with a vote at the GM plant in Silao.

The administration of President Joe Biden has brought six such complaints and brags that, for the first time, someone is challenging Mexico’s anti-democratic, old-guard unions that have kept wages painfully low for decades.

But workers and union organizers are mixed on the results, saying it’s hard to build a real union movement overnight, and that employers and old union bosses continue to resist change.

The first complaint was filed in May 2021 about attempts by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) union to interfere with a vote at the GM plant in Silao, in the north-central state of Guanajuato.

Under the pressure of the US complaint — which could eventually have led to trade sanctions — Mexican officials and observers oversaw a squeaky-clean union vote in which the old-guard CTM union was thrown out, and a new, independent union won the right to negotiate.

The new union quickly won an 8.5% wage increase and more bonuses. “On the economic side, the truth is the change came very quickly, though they were a little slow in giving us the increase,” said Manuel Carpio, a GM worker.

Carpio credits the reformed Mexican labor laws and the pressure brought to bear under the USMCA complaint.

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