News & Commentary June 4, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/june-4-2023/

By Julio Colby

Julio Colby is a student at Harvard Law School.

In this Weekend’s News & Commentary: Mexico is taking up the US’s request to investigate labor violations at Goodyear plant; Amazon fires another organizer at the company’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse; and leaders of the Air Line Pilots Association at United unanimously authorize a strike vote.

On Friday, Mexico announced it had taken up the US government’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRLM) request to investigate allegations that a Goodyear facility in San Luis Potosi is denying employees associational and collective bargaining rights. The RRLM of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement allows the US to challenge plants in Mexico that manufacture goods for US consumption for failing to comply with Mexican organizing and collective bargaining laws. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai lodged the complaint after receiving a petition from La Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana, which claimed that the Goodyear factory had not abided by provisions in a sectoral collective bargaining agreement and instead signed one with inferior benefits. Mexico’s Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare has 35 days to carry out an investigation and issue a determination. It was the fourth time this year and the ninth time overall that the US has invoked the RRLM, including earlier this week against a Draxton facility in Irapuato, Guanajuato, where the US alleges that the company fired a union leader and interfered with organizing activities.

FULL story at link above.