Panasonic workers in Mexico elect independent union, defeating top labor group
By Daina Beth Solomon
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Staff at a Panasonic auto elements plant in northern Mexico elected an impartial union this week, marking one other defeat for one of many nation’s greatest labor organizations as Mexico seeks to strengthen employee rights consistent with a brand new commerce deal.
Union SNITIS, which grew out of employee dissatisfaction with conventional labor teams within the northern state of Tamaulipas, received 75% of ballots in a two-day election through which 2,150 folks have been eligible to vote, Mexico’s federal labor heart mentioned late on Friday.
The competing group, SIAMARM, a part of the 86-year-old Confederation of Mexican Staff (CTM), received 25% on the manufacturing facility, which makes automobile audio and show methods, largely for U.S. and Canadian markets.
The outcome follows different current votes towards CTM, at a Basic Motors plant within the central state of Guanajuato and at auto elements plant Tridonex in Tamaulipas, each websites that confronted U.S. scrutiny for potential employee rights abuses underneath the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement (USMCA) commerce deal, which got here into pressure in 2020. [nL1N2V40DO]
SNITIS received the Tridonex election in February with practically 87% of the vote, in what union leaders hoped would set off a ripple impact.
“This has been overwhelming, just like the outcome at Tridonex, and we hope it is the identical approach in any respect factories that proceed to affix this new period of impartial unionism,” SNITIS founder Susana Prieto mentioned in a social media video after the Panasonic vote outcomes.
Panasonic mentioned in a press release that it revered and supported its workers’ proper to free affiliation and seemed ahead to working with SNITIS as soon as it’s formally registered because the manufacturing facility’s new union.
CTM didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, and SIAMARM couldn’t be reached instantly.
SIAMARM head Alberto Lara mentioned on social media forward of the vote that he would shield susceptible employees and that his union would provide one of the best contract.
SNITIS final week urged the U.S. authorities to research the Panasonic plant for alleged employee rights abuses, the newest in a sequence of disputes searching for to leverage the USMCA to enhance office situations in Mexico.
This week’s union election at Panasonic stemmed from a vote final yr through which employees rejected their prior union contract.
Such votes are required by a current Mexican labor reform to finish the as soon as widespread apply of unions and firms signing “safety contracts” with out employee information.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Enhancing by Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)
