Union leader of the automotive sector highlights progress in legitimizing collective contracts in 20 entities

The general secretary of the Federation of Workers of Coahuila, Tereso Medina, reported that he concluded the mandatory process of legitimizing the collective contracts that he currently supports, in which 500,000 workers participated in at least 420 collective labor contracts from all over the world. the country.

When participating in the webinar “The new labor model”, he explained that “almost 500,000 workers used union democracy, with a free, personal, secret and direct vote, in the legitimization processes of 420 collective labor contracts, in more than 20 states of the Mexican Republic, in the branches that interest Americans such as automotive, food and beverages, household appliances, steel, mines, electronics and aluminum, we have already concluded the process”, he stated.

The also substitute general secretary of the Confederation of Workers of Mexico (CTM) highlighted that this process, which is part of the Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States, and Canada (T-MEC), still has very low figures at the national level and the time to carry out the legitimations is close to ending, “hopefully we will reach 15,000 ; but, in the event that this is not the case, it is important to highlight that there will be a before and after, since it means turning the page completely on all the actors in the world of work. In the particular case, it means a reunion of the leaders with the workers”.

During his participation, Tereso Medina said that Mexico “opened the doors” to a greater presence of union organizations, both from the United States and Canada, who have not been able to comply with the workers by telling them that they could have similar salaries.

“The reform is good, not perfect; it can continue to be perfected,” said the union leader of the automotive sectionwho also called on companies to analyze the implications that the fact that contracts that were not legitimized are terminated can bring, since they make negotiations with each worker and not collectively more complicated.

“Having a low unionization means that they will have to make individual agreements, and when it is time to negotiate, it is not the same to do it collectively, which gives job stability, to doing it with each worker,” he explained.

The labor reform, he said, was to take care of jobs, “the result we have has not been good, jobs have been paused and investments too.”