US Again Asks Mexico to Review Labor Rights Issues

The US asked Mexico again to investigate whether workers at VU Manufacturing are being denied their labor rights. The democratic union of the League of Mexican Workers, also known as La Liga, presented a new labor complaint under USMCA’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). 

The first complaint filed against VU Manufacturing’s plant in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, took place in mid-2022, when workers argued that the company refused to allow them to freely organize unions to undertake the bargaining of their contract. 

"Despite this facility taking positive actions in 2022, some of the failures we identified previously appear to be recurring," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai says. "We look forward to working with the government of Mexico to promptly address this issue."

This represents the sixth time that the US has formally invoked USMCA’s RRM and the first in 2023. "This is the second time in less than a year we have received allegations of workers' rights violations by VU Manufacturing," US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says, adding that the mechanism "addresses real workplace issues and helps to get the parties to do what they should, which is to resolve issues in good faith at the bargaining table."

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