Mexican independent unions seize the TMEC to stop abuses

A demonstrator protests in front of the General Motors plant in Silao, in February. SERGIO MALDONADO (REUTERS)

Mexico's independent unions have found an unexpected ally to defend workers' rights: a free trade agreement.

Since the TMEC came into force, the US has filed three labor complaints against plants in Mexico for alleged violations of freedom of association, the last of them this week.

The unions see the treaty as a useful and quick resource to force a democratization of union life, still dominated by a handful of large groups.

However, experts say that the mechanism is not a panacea and that it is mainly dissuasive.

The Panasonic plant in Reynosa is on a war footing.

The workers rejected the collective contract in October, negotiated by the usual union and the Japanese multinational.

This opened a fight between the CTM, one of the most powerful associations in Mexico, and the SNITIS, a recently created independent union.

The latter won the election with 75% of the votes.

Despite the victory, the SNITIS has denounced that the Japanese multinational has signed a contract with the CTM, without mediating an election, and that during the last months it has been deducting union dues from the workers' salaries.

In the midst of this mess, the SNITIS has resorted to a nuclear option: the TMEC's ​​Rapid Response Labor Mechanism.

That did not please the CTM.

"Now it turns out that they accuse me of surrendering to foreign interests, but I look for whatever recourse there is to defend labor rights, and violations of the TMEC are a recourse," explains labor lawyer Susana Prieto, one of the leaders of the SNITIS and also deputy for Morena.

"Let's see how it works out."

The US accepted this week the validity of the evidence and filed the complaint with the Mexican authorities, who have ten days to respond and 45 to complete the investigation and propose a solution.

The Panasonic case is the third reported by the US in just over a year.

All three are related to the automotive industry, the jewel in the crown of the Mexican export sector.

The 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.

The second case, against the Tridonex plant in Matamoros, was rejected by Mexico because it preceded the entry into force of the mechanism.

In any case, the US pressed to extract certain concessions from the company: severance payments to the dismissed workers and its commitment to respect freedom of association.

These three cases are, so far, the balance of the mechanism, unique among the trade agreements that Mexico has signed.

Its speed is the first advantage that independent unions value.

After the 45 days that the investigation lasts, if the requesting country does not agree, it can convene an arbitration panel that has four months to resolve.

"It's very short," says academic Graciela Bensusán, who is part of one of the panels and is a professor at UAM Xochimilco.

"The procedures of NAFTA [the previous agreement] could take years."

In addition, the punishments are harsh, from the imposition of tariffs on the products of the non-compliant plant to the prohibition of exporting them.

Kenneth Smith, a member of the treaty's negotiating team during the Enrique Peña Nieto Administration, points out the unprecedented nature of the instrument: “The possibility of losing access to the US due to labor violations does not exist in any free trade agreement in Mexico.

Not even in their wildest dreams did the trade unionists imagine that there would be mechanisms of this nature”, he affirms.

The mechanism was not part of the original negotiation.

It was added after the signing of the treaty because the US Democratic Party, then in opposition, wanted to sell its support in Congress at a high price.

In addition, they did not trust the fulfillment of the labor commitments of the TMEC by Mexico.

The country has a long history of union leaders who have been re-elected for years without respecting the free and secret vote of the workers and with the blessing of the Government.

Faced with Democratic pressure, Mexico accepted the new demands.

The rush to close the agreement on the mechanism has led to an asymmetry between Mexico and its partners, according to experts.

To denounce Mexico, it is enough for the US or Canada to consider that there is a possible violation.

The burden of proving innocence also falls on the defendant country.

On the other hand, if Mexico wants to denounce its business partners, the complaint must have been previously admitted by the labor authorities of those countries.

"We were the weak and the dice are loaded against Mexico," says Bensusán.

"The US and Canada preserve more sovereignty."

Mexico's vulnerability in labor matters makes us foresee more complaints of this type.

Trade Representative Katherine Tai already warned this week that the US will work "quickly when a concern arises."

Faced with the latent threat, Smith warns of a possible overuse of the mechanism as a protectionist measure to block Mexican imports.

"It all depends on the willingness of the United States to present serious or frivolous cases, but with Biden's pro-union tendency, complaints will continue to be actively received and in some cases they will be acted upon," he predicts.

These asymmetries between the US and Mexico are the least important for those small independent unions that seek to dislodge the large groups, criticized for their proximity to political power and business.

"We are going to continue using the TMEC until the companies bend their hands and respect the law," says Susana Prieto.

The union leader also does not rule out using the mechanism to denounce the situation of Mexican agricultural workers in the US.

The power that the hegemonic unions still have threatens to hinder the presentation of cases before the mechanism.

The complaints against Panasonic, General Motors and Tridonex have been possible because there was previously an organized base of disgruntled workers.

At Tridonex, the SNITA spent eight months collecting evidence against the company.

These conditions are an exception.

“Workers have been intimidated for nine decades;

they fire them, they give them bulletins,” says Prieto.

“It is difficult for them to dare to raise their voices.”

For Graciela Bensusán, this instrument has a more dissuasive than punitive virtue.

“The very fact that it exists is a warning to the actors of what can happen.

The Mexican government has to take care of itself and the multinationals too,” she says.

The expert defends that the union "transformation" will not depend only on the mechanism, but on the new framework approved in the 2017 labor reform and regulated in 2019. The new law provides that workers vote freely for their representatives and every two years by collective agreements.

“They are going to be voting all day, but it is the way to go from such a closed, perverted arrangement, to authentic trade unionism,” says Bensusán.

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