A new initiative aims to unite Mexican and US workers who have for too long been pitted against each other by bosses.
Employees at a plant of the German carmaker Audi protest over wage demands in San José Chiapa, Puebla state, Mexico, on January 24, 2024.The United Auto Workers announced February 23 that it will provide material support to Mexican auto workers organizing in the independent union movement. As a member of the UAW Executive Board, I’m proud that our union understands how the futures of auto workers in the United States and Mexico are tied together.
NAFTA cost the working class in the U.S. millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs. Before it was signed in 1994, the U.S. auto industry was by far the biggest on the continent. Afterward, the Mexican auto workforce of 112,000 workers grew sevenfold, reaching nearly 900,000 by 2019, an increase that was especially concentrated in the parts sector. By 2016, the U.S. employed only about 51 percent of North American auto workers, and Mexico employed 42 percent.
That allowed the bosses to discipline U.S. auto workers, driving a concessionary bargain with UAW leaders who had no stomach for a fight. The company would threaten to offshore jobs to Mexico, and the union would buckle, assuming it had no leverage to resist.unions, what Mexican unionists call company unions. They’re a legacy of Mexico’s former one-party rule, where official unions were incorporated into the state.
The question is how auto workers on both sides of the border can regain our leverage in the industry. On the one hand, we’re organizing the nonunion plants in the U.S. South. But on the other hand, we have to get over our tendency to fret over VIN numbers and instead double down on our commitment to international solidarity. Simply “buying American” is not enough.
Past UAW administrations expressed verbal support for Mexico’s independent labor movement, but their follow-through was limited. Our recent decision under President Shawn Fain’s leadership is not just talk.
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