Bloomberg
A new and independent union won the right to represent workers at General Motors Co.’s truck plant in Mexico — a sign that new North American free trade rules are bolstering the nation’s labor rights.
The union, known as SINTTIA, won the vote by a wide margin, Mexican labor authorities said. The group defeated the CTM, Mexico’s entrenched labor group, to represent more than 6,000 workers in labor negotiations at the plant, which produces the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra models in Silao, a city in central Mexico.
The victory by an independent union could start to break the CTM’s longstanding hold on Mexican labor wages and begin the long process of bringing pay closer to what workers make in the U.S. and Canada. Workers and labor rights groups have criticized the CTM for years, alleging that it negotiated low-wage “protection contracts” that suppressed pay for the very workers the union was supposed to represent. A Bloomberg investigation substantiated the claims.
Workers at the Silao plant will now prepare to bargain for a new contract with GM. Employees there say they earn less than $25 a day, compared to a range of $18 to $32 per hour at GM plants in the U.S. and Canada. Mexico’s low wages -- and its unions that traditionally look out for employers’ interests ahead of workers’ -- have been targeted in the USMCA, as the regional trade pact is known.
“SINTTIA is looking forward to bargaining a decent collective agreement,” said Mohamad Alsadi, director of...
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