US unions file first trade labor complaint against Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. and Mexican unions on Monday filed the first labor complaint against Mexico under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade pact.

The complaint argues that Mexico has not lived up to its pledge under the trade accord, known as the USMCA, to guarantee workers the right to freely organize and join the union of their choice.

The complaint centers on the Tridonex auto parts assembly plant in the Mexican border city of Matamoros where workers have been fighting to join a new union.

The outside organizer of that union, lawyer Susana Prieto, has been jailed, harassed and prohibited from traveling to Tamaulipas, the state where Matamoros is.

“I still cannot go to Tamaulipas, nor travel abroad, nor live in any state other than Chihuahua," Prieto said.

Prieto said about 600 union supporters have been fired from the Matamoros plant in retaliation for their fight to oust on old-guard union.

In a statement, Prieto said: "We are fighting so that no one ever is afraid of freely electing the union they wish to represent them and to make history, ending several generations of modern slavery.”

In 2019, Prieto led a historic and largely successful battle for higher wages in Matamoros, but she was arrested for allegedly inciting a riot, threats and coercion stemming from a protest at a local labor board that sought to revoke an existing union at a factory and install a new one. In return for the charges being dropped, she had to adhere to the unusual travel restrictions.

Mexico's old-guard unions — often linked to the former governing party — signed thousands of “protection" labor contracts in the past, often before factories even opened. They guarantee employers labor peace and low wages, but workers often couldn't vote in their contract negotiations or for their union...