The United Auto Workers union looks to increase its labor power by supporting the efforts of autoworkers in Mexico to unionize and negotiate higher wages and improved working conditions.
The union announced Friday that its UAW International Executive Board voted earlier in the week to establish a new solidarity project. The project will provide resources to Mexican autoworkers and independent unions in Mexico. The union said it wants to strengthen cross-border solidarity between U.S. and Mexican workers. A UAW spokesman did not provide further details on the exact resources the UAW will provide.
Cross-border solidarity was key last fall when the UAW and its counterpart in Canada, Unifor, were negotiating new contracts with the Detroit carmakers at the same time. The UAW conducted a targeted 46-day Stand-Up Strike across the Detroit Three automakers while Unifor went on strike at three of General Motors’ factories in Canada. The strike lasted less than a day last October before Unifor reached a deal with the automaker.
In Mexico, the National Independent Union of Workers of the Automotive Industry, or SINTTIA, won the vote to represent about 6,500 workers at GM’s Silao Assembly Plant, located about 200 miles north of Mexico City in 2022. That same year, GM agreed to give hourly workers there an 8.5% wage increase as part of a new agreement.
“For decades, corporations have taken advantage of inadequate trade laws to offshore thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico where worker wages and conditions have long been suppressed,” the UAW said in a statement. “Corporations use the threat of offshoring jobs as a cudgel to beat back worker discontent and organizing efforts in the U.S.”
The UAW said Mexican autoworker wages plummeted after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Since NAFTA, Mexico’s automotive workforce has grown sevenfold, but wages, benefits, and working conditions continue to lag.
The UAW is currently trying to organize more nonunion automakers across the United States. On Wednesday, the UAW said it will spend $40 million in new funds to support the organizing of workers in nonunion auto plants and battery facilities, “particularly in the South,” through 2026.
