An Early Test for Labor Rights under the New Trade Pact

Last month, on May 10, SNITIS — an independent union of maquila workers in México — joined with the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch to file a complaint with the Biden administration against labor rights violations at a group of auto parts factories in México. Management at these factories, these groups charge, has violated the terms of the new labor provisions included in the USMCA, the United States-México-Canada Agreement that went into effect last year.

The complaint focuses on the Tridonex plants in the city of Matamoros, just across the Texas border. Tridonex operates as a subsidiary of a Philadelphia based company that moved 1,300 jobs from the United States to México in 2016. Tridonex has since then been harassing and firing workers organizing to replace the company-controlled union with the independent SNITIS, a union fighting for a 20 percent salary increase and an annual bonus of 32,000 peso bonus.

Many progressives in the US and México have criticized the AMLO administration for not doing enough to support independent union organizing. But these comments below, made last week by Tridonex workers in Facebook posts, show a different perspective. In any case, what the Biden and AMLO administrations choose to do next bears watching closely.

“If we are to be unionized workers, only 20/32 is an incorruptible union. Lawyer Susana Prieto, who is also union president, seeks the best future for the whole people. She already has changed our mentality, so we know better where it is possible to go, to not be afraid of change, only to be afraid we will not move forward…We are fighting until we achieve the well-being of all. And we will continue to vote for change and for 4T; we will not back down and as long as the party of our president doesn’t deceive us, we will continue to support them. UP WITH MORENA!”
Ismael Castellanos

“Never has any president ever cared about the working class, never has a politician turned his face to see us and look at our bad working conditions, we were only taken as a voter to be used as a stepping stone to achieve his own goals. None worried about giving us a better salary.  Today we have a president who helps us, a labor lawyer who supports us, and a union that has opened its doors. Take courage, comrades!”

Eliazar Hernandez