LatinNews Daily - 12 December 2023

*The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has announced the successful resolution of a labour rights dispute at an Industrias del Interior (Inisa) garment factory in Mexico’s Aguascalientes state. According to the USTR, this was the first time that US had invoked the Rapid Response Labour Mechanism (RRM) in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) outside of the auto sector. The USTR asked Mexico to review whether workers’ rights were being denied at the facility in June, with the US and Mexico agreeing on a plan to address labour violations occurring at the facility in July. That plan has now been implemented and workers’ rights restored. Actions taken by the facility and Mexico’s government to address the matter include: Inisa paying certain benefit vouchers retroactively and increasing the value of those vouchers going forward; adopting a neutrality statement and company guidelines on freedom of association and collective bargaining, including a zero-tolerance policy for violations; establishing a complaint mechanism for workers to anonymously report any violations of their rights; relocating the union’s office and full-time union work employees to an area separate from the company’s human resources department; and the government delivering training for personnel on freedom of association and collective bargaining. The resolution comes after Mexico’s government announced progress in two other RRM cases, relating to an automotive parts facility in San Luis Potosí state run by Chinese-owned firm Asiaway and an automotive parts plant in Aguascalientes state run by Turkish-owned company Teklas.