Mexican authorities have ordered the General Motors (GM) Co union in the city of Silao to repeat a workers’ vote following pressure from U.S. lawmakers to have the automaker respond to alleged abuses that could potentially violate a new trade deal .
Mexico’s labor ministry said on Tuesday it found “serious irregularities” in last month’s vote, which is required as part of a Mexican labor reform to ensure employees are not bound by contracts signed behind their backs and to keep wages low.
These votes are part of Mexico’s larger effort to uphold workers’ rights under a new free trade pact that replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA.
Concerns over GM come amid various complaints in recent days about workplace abuse in Mexico, just as US activists and politicians begin to relax new powers to enforce labor standards south of the border included in the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement.
America’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, on Monday urged the US government to file a complaint with USMCA against Tridonex, an auto parts factory in the Mexican border town of Matamoros, where it said workers had been prevented from electing an independent union. .
Potential abuses
In GM’s case, some ballots were destroyed in the union-led vote, Mexico’s labor ministry found. He also said the union, which is part of the powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), refused to provide labor inspectors with documentation on the vote count.
U.S. Representatives Dan Kildee, Bill Pascrell and Earl Blumenauer, all Democrats, called on GM to answer questions about the potential abuse.
America’s largest automaker “has a responsibility to speak out against labor and human rights violations at the Silao GM plant,” they said in a letter to GM chief executive Mary Barra.
Lawmakers also cited reports that GM officials fired independent inspectors, among other intimidating tactics targeting staff.
GM denied any wrongdoing and said government-approved inspectors were not barred from entering the voting site. He also said he condemned the violations of workers’ rights and had hired a third-party company to look into the matter.
GM’s union must hold a new vote within 30 days, the ministry said, after the initial vote “violated the principles of safety and certainty.”
Hugo Varela, the head of the CTM in Guanajuato state, where the Silao plant is located, did not respond to a request for comment on the order from the Ministry of Labor. He previously said CTM is committed to complying with the law and keeping jobs in Mexico.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office declined to comment on GM.
Defend workers’ rights
The disputed vote in Silao, which employs some 6,000 people, came days before GM announced it would invest $ 1 billion in an electric vehicle manufacturing complex in Mexico, prompting criticism from the United Workers of the United Nations. automobile.
UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg separately told Reuters news agency this week that he was “concerned and had appropriate discussions” about the vote in Mexico.
Additionally, Geneva-based Industrial Global Unions and Toronto-based Unifor said last week in letters to GM Chairman Mark Reuss that the incident appeared to violate USMCA and urged GM to protect the workers.
Unifor President Jerry Dias has expressed “outrage” at the situation and said he will explore “all avenues available” to uphold workers’ rights in Mexico, including dispute resolution tools under USMCA.
The Biden administration is prioritizing the implementation of existing commitments in trade agreements by US partners. Democrats and U.S. unions have made tough worker rules and enforcement mechanisms for Mexico a key demand to win their support for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal that went into effect in July. They feared that the pact replaced by USMCA would contain these provisions.
