The UAW Is Supporting Mexican Autoworker Organizing
The UAW announced it will be providing material support to Mexican autoworker organizing. The effort aims at spreading independent unionism across the border — and at undermining automakers’ ability to threaten US workers with offshoring their jobs.
Employees at an auto plant in San José Chiapa, Puebla state, Mexico, striking for higher wages on January 24, 2024. (Daniel Casas / AFP via Getty Images)
The United Auto Workers (UAW) announced February 23 that it will provide material support to Mexican autoworkers 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 autoworkers in the United States and Mexico are tied together.
Our Mexico solidarity project is about empowering our membership to win strong contracts and protecting our jobs in the United States — and it’s also about ensuring justice for workers across the border.
The auto industry is not nationally bound, and neither should the labor movement be. For every record contract there will come the threat of moving production to Mexico, where a partnership between the companies and the corrupt company unions keep wages low — a whipsaw that oppresses workers on both sides of the border.
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