MEXICAN and US unions are making great strides in winning union recognition by using the rapid response clauses in the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) for workers — winning representation by independent trade unions for workers who want to kick out yellow unions which back employers and hold down pay and working conditions. 

Shamefully, US and European companies have hidden behind the discredited Mexican labour laws to keep independent unions out of their companies in order to maintain compliant workforces undermining US workers’ wages and making it easy for US and Canadian companies to move jobs into low-tax, low-pay areas of Mexico.

Yellow unions such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) have a history of collusion in dismissing independent union reps and ignoring the wishes of the workforce.

They have used thuggery to control the workforce and independent union members and officials have been subjected to beatings and harassment to keep yellow unions in place — even after workers made it clear they did not want these “unions” to represent them.

Mexican independent unions and US unions demanded that any revised trade agreement had to ensure that independent trade unions were able to secure representation in order to bargain for decent wages and conditions.

Their campaigning resulted in the new agreement containing a labour chapter that prioritises labour obligations by including them in the centre of the agreement and making them fully enforceable. 

This is a major change from Bill Clinton’s Nafta deal, which only contained a side agreement on labour, and the new agreement is dramatically benefiting Mexican and US workers and businesses.

The Rapid Response Mechanism was not part of the original USMCA negotiation. It was added after the treaty was signed following pressure from Democrats, then in opposition in the US Congress, and agreed to by Mexico. 

The Rapid Response Mechanism — the first of its kind — allows the United States to take enforcement actions against individual companies if they fail to comply with domestic freedom of association and collective bargaining laws.

Similarly, the USMCA includes provisions aimed at directly improving wages and bringing jobs back to the US auto industry. The deal contains new rules of origin that require 40-45 per cent of auto content be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour in order to receive USMCA tariff relief.

The USMCA implementing legislation includes $210 million for USMCA implementation activities: $180m over four years for USMCA-related technical assistance projects and $30m over eight years for monitoring USMCA compliance, including the necessary expenses of additional full-time employees for the Interagency Committee and labour attaches in Mexico.

Among its provisions, the USMCA Labour Chapter:

• Requires the parties to adopt and maintain in law and practice labour rights as recognised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), to effectively enforce its labour laws and not to waive or derogate from its labour laws

• Includes new provisions that require the parties to take measures to prohibit the importation of goods produced by forced labour, to address violence against workers exercising their labour rights, to address sex-based discrimination in the workplace and to ensure that migrant workers are protected under labour laws

• Includes an annex on worker representation in collective bargaining in Mexico, under which Mexico commits to specific legislative actions to provide for the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining

• Will allow for workers to engage in real collective bargaining and will require companies in Mexico to abide by the same basic labour principles that companies in the United States do

• To fulfil this commitment, Mexico enacted historic labour reforms on May 1 2019, and is implementing transformational changes to its labour regime, including new independent institutions for registering unions and collective bargaining agreements and new and impartial labour courts to adjudicate disputes.

In recent times, at the Panasonic plant in Reynosa in north-eastern Mexico, workers rejected an agreement proposed by the Japanese multinational following negotiations with the CTM.

In April 2022 workers who voted overwhelmingly to be represented by new independent union, SNITIS, said that not only had Panasonic signed an agreement with a union rejected by the workers, but had also been deducting CTM union dues from their salaries. 

SNITIS filed a complaint to US trade authorities under the USMCA’s Rapid Response Labour Mechanism.

The US accepted SNITIS’s evidence and filed the complaint with the Mexican authorities. Under the Mechanism, Mexico had 10 days to respond and then 45 days to complete an investigation and propose a solution.

A complaint against the General Motors plant in Silao, which was already being investigated by the Mexican government, led to a repeat vote, in which the CTM was defeated.

There are other cases where company-supporting unions are being voted out using the new Mexican labour laws but there is still along way to go before Mexico rids itself of corrupt and unrepresentative unions.

Tony Burke is speaking on Mexican unions at the Latin America 2023 conference this weekend.