Download This PaperEnforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement ("USMCA") Rapid Response Mechanism: Views from Mexican Auto Sector Workers
Cornell University School of Industrial Labor Relations Center of Applied Research on Work (CAROW) Report
73 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2024 Last revised: 8 Nov 2024
Date Written: November 07, 2024
Abstract
This study examines whether the RRM empowers workers’ voices in the Mexican auto sector. To this end, between January and March 2024, we interviewed 130 workers across seven supplier facilities (auto plants facilities and logistics facilities) and five assembly plants, for a total of 12 facilities. Three of the facilities were not unionized; nine facilities were unionized. Three of the twelve plants had used the RRM (“RRM facilities”), addressing various violations of labor rights, voting processes to approve or reject collective contracts, voting processes to elect independent unions, and dismissals and intimidation of workers in union activism. All three RRM cases were remediated through plans requiring the facility to hold a new legitimization vote and union election and offer worker-level trainings. Our preliminary results problematize some assumptions that drove RRM implementation. The Biden administration and members of the United States Congress have promoted the RRM as a way to strengthen the Mexican government’s efforts to implement Mexican labor law reform, empower workers in productive export sectors, and give them a voice over their labor conditions. Our results suggest that, four years after the implementation of the USMCA and the reforms of Mexico’s labor legislation, a little more than half of the workers are aware of the labor law reform, and opinions are divided on whether it is strengthening labor rights. Some workers thought the reforms were going well, while many thought the reform process was going poorly or did not know how it was going. The majority of workers we interviewed revealed that they did not understand the new democratic procedures to legitimize their collective bargaining agreements, nor that they could access the RRM platform to express their complaints. Nevertheless, the workers we interviewed at RRM facilities tended to be more knowledgeable of the labor law reforms and its attendant rights and processes than those at facilities that have not undergone RRM investigation and remediation, and they tended to view their bargaining representative and conditions of work more favorably. Our study suggests that when workers are given the opportunity to participate in democratic elections under international supervision, after receiving training on the shop floor about their rights and election procedures, they gain knowledge and ownership over their working conditions.
Keywords: trade, USMCA, labor, Mexico, unions, collective bargaining, auto sector, international labor law, labor treaties, labor rights
JEL Classification: K33, J5, J83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
