Insight: One factory worker takes on Mexico's powerful unions

OnTide

27/10/2022 11:00

By Daina Beth Solomon
       PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Until last
year, Julieta Monica Morales was another factory worker making
T-shirts in central Mexico, fuming over poor pay and a broken
union system she thought served companies more than workers. 
    Now, she is at the head of her own fledgling union and
taking on the traditional politically connected ones she so
despised. She wants better pay and benefits, but above all else,
she says she wants workers to have more control over who
represents them.
    In August, her union - La Liga - celebrated its first major
victory, winning the right to represent workers at a small car
upholstery factory called VU Manufacturing on the U.S. border. 
    Then in September, they laid the groundwork to secure
support at another factory, this time belonging to U.S.
industrial giant 3M Co  MMM.N .
    Those wins, and victories by other new unions, are signs of
a revitalized labor movement benefiting from favorable tailwinds
in both Mexico and the United States that are emboldening
upstarts to take on powerful entrenched interests.
    Morales, 38, knows it will be a struggle.
    "The other union is very powerful," she said, her eyes
focused on the desert road while driving to the VU Manufacturing
plant where La Liga was up against the Confederation of Mexican
Workers (CTM), which has dominated the country's labor movement
for decades.
    Later, outside the factory that produces armrests and door
upholstery for brands like Toyota  7203.T , Honda  7267.T , and
Chrysler, Morales told VU Manufacturing employees that La Liga,
which means The League, was ready to fight.
    "We're a very different union because we're made up of
workers," she said. "We know what it means to start from the
bottom."
    Morales can only serve as Secretary General for three years
before going back to the production line.
    That worker-driven vision, Morales says, marks a departure
from Mexico's history of top-down union leadership - mostly by
men - who never worked a minute on the factory floor.
    New laws brought in by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
have made it easier for workers to set up new unions and unseat
powerful incumbents.
    The rise of new unions like La Liga has also been helped by
a revised trade deal with the United States, under which
companies can be sanctioned if found blocking workers from
forming new unions.
    Already, that mechanism under the 2020 United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the 1994
NAFTA, has been implemented five times in Mexico including at
General Motors Co  GM.N , Stellantis  STLA.MI  and VU
Manufacturing.
    CTM representatives say their unions defend worker rights,
offer perks such as scholarships and sports programs and abide
by Mexico's new labor rules.
    3M says it respects workers' right to organize and will
negotiate with the union they choose, aiming for job stability. 
    Michigan-based VU Manufacturing did not respond to requests
for comment. A letter posted inside the factory said the company
would not intervene in a workers' vote to choose their union.
    'WHEREVER WE HAVE TO GO'
    La Liga may still represent a tiny fraction of Mexico's
workforce, with just one plant secured and victory close at
another, but its emergence is a sign of change after 30 years in
which wages have been virtually stagnant, while U.S. pay climbed
over 50%.
    Mexican inflation is now hitting a two-decade high and
eating into pay - fertile ground for a revitalized labor
movement.
    "This is a hot moment," said Kevin Middlebrook, a professor
of Latin American politics at University College London. "It is
as favorable a conjunction of forces for democratic labor reform
in Mexico ... as one could possibly imagine." 
    Along with La Liga, other new unions have also won victories
over powerful rivals in the past year at GM, Japan's Panasonic
 6752.T  and French glassmaker Saint-Gobain  SGOB.PA , pledging
better pay. 
    Even among the new crop, La Liga stands out for its broader
vision: targeting companies no matter the sector, no matter the
location.
    "We'll go wherever we have to go," Morales said. 
    The next target is sportswear maker Mex Mode in her
homestate of Puebla, owned by Korea's Kukdong Corp  005320.KS ,
where she has worked over 15 years and where she once grew so
angry with her union boss that she and other colleagues threw
the representative onto the street. 
    Mex Mode said it has historically offered
higher-than-average salaries and better benefits than required
by law, and that workers are free to affiliate with any union.
    Activists supporting La Liga are also speaking with workers
in the central state of Queretaro as well as Durango and
Coahuila near the northern border.
    Companies are warily eyeing the rise of these nascent unions
- even though they remain few and small - uncertain how costly
their demands may be and what strategies they may use.
    Employers also worry major pay-hike demands could increase
costs and set industry-wide precedents just as businesses
navigate surging inflation, an economic slump and government
policies that have spooked investors.
    "The unions, whoever they may be, need to understand that
competitivity is our limit," said Jose Zozaya, director of
Mexico's top auto industry association, AMIA. "We have to
maintain it to protect jobs and attract a greater number of
companies." 
    STACKED DECK 
    For decades, the deck has been stacked against Mexican
workers. 
    Since the Mexican revolution in the early 1900s, the
organized labor movement rose alongside the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). 
    As the PRI became the establishment - going on to rule
Mexico uninterrupted for seven decades until 2000 - the party
used its cozy relationship with major unions to keep down wages,
arguing it was needed to make Mexico competitive and help it
industrialize.  
    Even after the ousting of the PRI, the biggest unions like
CTM won favor with the victorious National Action Party (PAN)
for their ability to quell strikes and keep a lid on pay.
    But in 2018, the election of Lopez Obrador ushered in the
most left-wing government in Mexico's democratic history. 
    It coincided with U.S. President Donald Trump's push for a
revised trade agreement that, among other things, aimed to
protect U.S. jobs by strengthening worker rights in Mexico. 
    In Mexico, the USMCA was accompanied by new laws requiring
secret-ballots in union elections and the formation of
independent tribunals to replace often-rigged local panels. 
    FACTORY BY FACTORY
    Morales wants to make the most of the opening. 
    Leaving her three kids at home, she is traveling factory to
factory seeking support. 
    She knows her movement has a mountain to climb. Many workers
in La Liga have little experience in organizing and contract
negotiation and say they face companies and lawyers keen on
preserving the status quo. What's more, to drum up support, La
Liga must fight a deeply embedded culture of fear and apathy
around speaking out. 
    Next year could be critical. The labor reform aimed to wipe
out sweetheart deals between employers and unions made behind
workers' backs, called protection contracts, and thousands of
them are expected to dissolve by May 2023.
    For workers suddenly without contracts, La Liga hopes it can
step in. The strategy is to offer La Liga's resources and
expertise while putting workers directly in charge of developing
their collective contracts.
    In the coming weeks, Morales will have the chance to put her
vision into practice as La Liga negotiates its first collective
contract, at VU Manufacturing.
    Workers want higher pay, cheaper cafeteria options, easier
transportation and better ventilation on the hot production
floor, where the air is thick with the smell of glue and
employees strain to be heard over clacking staplers.
    When she visited the plant in August, Morales sat on the
outdoor lunch benches and patiently heard complaints that La
Liga could not compete with the institutional strength of an
older, rival union. 
    Morales pushed back: "Who are the ones who are going to
change things?"    
 (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Stephen
Eisenhammer and Lisa Shumaker)
 ((daina.solomon@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 5282 7150;))