The USTR and the United States Department of Commerce asked Mexico to review the case regarding alleged violations of freedom of association in an auto parts plant of the Tridomex company installed in Matamoros.

On May 10, the AFL-CIO and other groups filed a request for a rapid labor response case against Tridonex, within the framework of the USMCA, and in which Tridomex workers have allegedly been harassed and fired by your efforts to organize with an independent union

The head of the USTR, Katherine Tai, and the Secretary of Labor of the United States, Marty Walsh, announced this Wednesday that the United States asked Mexico to review if the workers of the Tridonex plant, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, are denied the rights of free association and collective bargaining.

«Enforcing the highest labor standards in the USMCA is a central pillar of the Biden-Harris Administration’s worker-centered trade policy,» Tai said in a statement.

USTR and the case of Tridomex

In the complaint against Tridonex, the AFL-CIO assures that workers are being denied their right to organize to negotiate better wages and working conditions.

«For two years, Tridonex workers have been harassed and fired for trying to organize with SNITIS, an independent Mexican union of their choice, to replace a corrupt union,» the organization said in a statement.

The complaint was made in conjunction with the International Union of Service Employees (SEIU), the Independent National Union of Industrial and Service Workers Movement 20/32 (SNITIS) and the non-governmental organization Public Citizen.

The imprisonment, harassment and dispossession of the lawyer and SNITS leader, Susana Prieto, is an important key in the case, according to the statement itself.

USMCA

Prieto was behind bars for 24 days before she was released on the condition that she leave the state of Tamaulipas.

«The USMCA requires Mexico to end the reign of the protection unions and their corrupt deals with employers,» said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. «The continuous harassment of Susana Prieto and the members of SNITIS is a textbook violation of labor laws that Mexico has undertaken to respect.»

U.S. government

«The ability of workers to exercise their fundamental human rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining without retaliation is essential to building independent unions in Mexico,» said Walsh.

The Trade Representative and the Secretary of Labor co-chair the Inter-ministerial Labor Committee for Monitoring and Compliance (ILC).

Likewise, the ILC reviews the Rapid Response Mechanism requests it receives, and accompanying information, within 30 days.

This Wednesday, the Committee determined that there is sufficient credible evidence of a denial of rights that allows the invocation in good faith of the enforcement mechanisms.

As a result, the Trade Representative has submitted a request to Mexico for Mexico to review whether the workers at the Tridonex plant are denied the right to free association and collective bargaining.

Mexico has 10 days to agree to a review and, if it agrees, 45 days from today to remedy.