Mexico City.- The Rapid Response Labor Mechanism of the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) is an instrument that is abused, so it is necessary to regulate its application, said Oscar de la Vega, legal representative of Volkswagen of Mexico.
The lawyer said the defendant companies do not know which groups are accusing them and have no opportunity to defend themselves.
“In the review of the USMCA, in 2026, it is necessary to regulate the Rapid Response Mechanism, in the sense that the companies involved are in a total and absolute state of defenselessness. Since it is not regulated, they do not know who accuses them, who triggers the Mechanism, they can be anonymous, they are confidential by the US Government, it does not tell you who are those who trigger it,” said De la Vega after the Governments of Mexico and the United States announced that the complaint against the shipbuilder had been resolved. “You cannot see the evidence they are offering, you cannot object to it, you cannot cross-examine the witnesses and people who participate in the investigations of the US Government, and you can be sanctioned without having been heard, which is the guarantee of due process,” he said in an interview.
VW was the subject of a complaint via the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism by the Network of Women Trade Unionists, which accused the company of having fired a group of workers for their union activity.
Following an investigation, the United States government accepted the labor complaint, considering that there had been violations of the rights of association and collective bargaining. “The Network of Women Trade Unionists said that there was a pattern of firing all union leaders, but there is no such pattern, it does not exist, and the Mexican government investigated it and determined that there was no such pattern,” said De la Vega. However, to close the complaint, the company committed to carry out a series of measures, such as reinstating and granting retroactive salaries and full benefits to eight workers who had been fired, in addition to publishing, disseminating and implementing its declaration of neutrality and the company’s guidelines on freedom of association and collective bargaining. De la Vega emphasized that regulations are required for the Mechanism to function better. “In these proceedings you feel like you are in the trials of the Holy Inquisition: you don’t know why you are being accused or who is accusing you. This trial (against Volkswagen) was resolved correctly and there was no denial of freedom of association,” he said.
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