North American Workers Unite? US and Canadian labor federations and the democratization of labor unions in the Mexican automotive industry

Abstract

The outsourcing of production from the Global North to countries such as Mexico in the 1990s required the specialization of the workforce, but also the deregulation of working conditions. In Mexico’s long phase of corporatist state-society relations throughout the 20th century, labor conditions were characterized by the presence of protection unions, which inhibited democratic processes and perpetuated adverse labor conditions like low minimum wages and reduced employment benefits. Labor conditions worsened with the ratification of NAFTA in 1994. In this context, North American unions and The International Labor Organization (ILO) demanded the inclusion of a chapter on labor rights in the recently adopted United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, “new NAFTA”, 2020).

The 23 chapters include clauses about the freedom of association and recognition of collective bargaining, which had existed in Canada and the US before, but not in Mexico. In 2022, an independent union (SINTTIA) won workers’ representation at one of General Motors’ large plants in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. This became possible due to the financial and logistical support of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) through the non-governmental organization Solidarity Center. However, the relationship of US/Canadian with Mexican unions is not only characterized by international workers solidarity, but also by their own vested interests of maintaining their privileged position in an unequal center-periphery relationship.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the role of US and Canadian labor organizations in the formation of the independent Mexican union SINTTIA in the context of the ratification of USMCA and its specifications on labor rights, and to discuss the contradictory nature of the relationship among North American workers. In order to do so, ethnographic work is carried out in the offices of the Solidarity Center in Mexico City and the union SINTTIA in the city of Silao (Guanajuato).