The White House is escalating a labor dispute at a major mine in central Mexico, an action backed by powerful labor unions, but it could have a devastating effect on workers and the economy. The United States Trade Representative , which is housed in the White House, is pursuing the case by leveraging a little-used tool in the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement .
However, the process has faced considerable pushback from the Mexican government, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the owner of the mine, Grupo Mexico, which has argued the U.S. government doesn't have jurisdiction in the dispute. Critics have also warned the process, which is expected to conclude with a ruling as early as Friday, has lacked transparency.
Still, that same month, USTR invoked the USMCA's RRM and requested the Mexican government review whether workers at the mine were being denied their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The request was in response to a petition filed by Los Mineros alongside the AFL-CIO and the United Steel Workers . On Aug. 22, 2023, despite Mexico's assertion that the case was outside the scope of the USMCA, USTR formally requested the first-ever RRM tribunal.
And it could further benefit Los Mineros General-Secretary Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, who is facing criminal charges and was ordered by a Mexican court to pay $54 million in an alleged embezzlement scheme, Mexico Business News previously reported. One of Los Mineros' demands to end the San Martin strike was for the Mexican federal government to drop its charges against Urrutia. The USTR, AFL-CIO, USW and Los Mineros didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.
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