On Monday, the AFL-CIO and some other groups announced the filing of a petition under the USMCA rapid response labor mechanism (for background on this procedure, see Kathleen's post here). Now today, USTR announced that it has initiated a request for review under that mechanism on a different matter:
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai today announced that the United States has asked Mexico to review whether workers at a General Motors (GM) facility are being denied the right of free association and collective bargaining. The request is the first time any country has used the novel Rapid Response Labor Mechanism in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). USTR and the Department of Labor received information appearing to indicate serious violations of these workers’ rights in Silao, State of Guanajuato in connection with a recent worker vote, organized by the existing union, to approve their collective bargaining agreement.
We'll be covering these issues on WorldTradeLaw.net. (For DSC subscribers, our list of USMCA labor petitions is here). I don't see the U.S. request for review in the GM case yet, but hopefully the relevant documents will be made public at some point.
UPDATE: The request for review is here.
