US and Mexico agree to remedy labor violations at Goodyear plant

USA and Mexico agreed this Wednesday to take a series of measures to remedy several violations of labor rights that they found in a plant of the multinational Goodyear in San Luis Potosi.

Among the measures announced by the office of the US Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, is to ensure that Goodyear complies with the contract law of the rubber industry, especially on issues of wages and benefits, and distribute copies of it to plant personnel.

In a statement, Tai congratulated the Mexican government for committing to enforce labor laws and assured that it will continue to “close to the implementation of the plan”.

Mexico will have to ensure that the multinational agrees to respect the rights of association and collective bargaining, which have been denied to workers at the plant on several occasions.

In turn, the Executive of Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to consider imposing sanctions on Goodyear if the provisions of this plan are not complied with, which has a deadline for implementation on January 19 of next year.

Earlier this month, in a review initiated at the request of the US on labor conditions at that factory, the Mexican government concluded that the rights of free association and collective bargaining were being denied to workers.

Last April, the Mexican labor authorities had annulled the legitimization process of Goodyear’s collective agreement due to possible fraud by the union.

In turn, the Liga Sindical Obrera requested the Inter-Institutional Labor Committee for Monitoring and Control (CIT, in English), which is in charge of enforcing the requirements of the T-MEC trade agreement, to inquire about the situation.

This repair plan is the fourth to be reached under the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism for Specific Facilities (RRM) of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Source: EFE