GM workers in northern Mexico vote to keep union contract

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Basic Motors Co employees in northern Mexico have voted by a broad margin to maintain their collective contract with one in every of Mexico’s largest unions, weeks after GM employees in central Mexico elected unbiased illustration, ousting the long-dominant group.
In votes Thursday and Friday at Basic Motors within the metropolis of Ramos Arizpe within the border state of Coahuila, a number of thousand employees forged ballots to maintain ties with the Confederation of Mexican Employees (CTM), the union mentioned on Sunday.
Contract ratification votes are required beneath Mexico’s 2019 labor reform, which underpins a brand new commerce cope with the US and Canada, to make sure employees are usually not sure to contracts that had been signed behind their backs, hampering them from demanding higher pay.
Within the international propulsion techniques space of the GM plant, 94% of 1,379 votes forged had been in favor of the contract, as had been 96% of two,657 ballots forged within the bigger meeting space, CTM mentioned in a press release.
Greater than 4,500 workers had been eligible to vote on the 40-year-old plant, which produces Chevrolet Blazer and Chevrolet Equinox automobiles in addition to two engine varieties.
Basic Motors didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The result marks a stark distinction from a vote at a bigger GM plant within the central Mexican metropolis of Silao final 12 months the place a number of thousand employees rejected their contract with CTM, a course of intently watched by the U.S. authorities after allegations of irregularities.
In February the Silao employees elected an unbiased union, SINTTIA, opening the door to the prospect of larger pay rises.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico Metropolis; Enhancing by Cynthia Osterman)