VU Manufacturing offers the first collective bargaining agreement with wages of 330 pesos per day

The proposal presented by the company VU Manufacturing to Mexican Union Leaguewith whom he is in the process of negotiating the first collective bargaining agreement in a decade of company operations, is to offer a penalty of 5.6% above the minimum wage to the highest category -of four- which are 330 pesos dailywhile for the lowest they offer 315 pesoswhich is why the union organization has presented a new proposal “to help move from a minimum wage company to one with an authentic collective contract,” he said. Francisco Retamalegal representative of the LSOM.

For this reason, the company has a strike summons for February 6, 2023; in addition to the fact that a new complaint has been filed under the Rapid Response mechanism under the T-MECsince “there has not been a serious negotiation with the workers.”

In this sense, he added that “the table proposed by the employer in VU defines it as a minimum wage company. Which nullifies the impact of the existence of a collective agreement. In other words, the company says it is willing to sign a collective contract, but refuses to exceed the legal minimum. It is about signing a collective contract, but maintaining a situation as if there were no such contract, complying with the minimum requirements of the law”.

The main argument that the company has given to the workers, who won union representation by voting, is that it is in an economic situation “derived from the increases in the prices of its suppliers and the debts that some of its workers have with the company.” Your clients”.

They highlighted that, in recent years, when the minimum wage in the North Border Free Zone has had a substantial increase, “several companies in the Piedras Negras industrial zone not only complied with the legal obligation to pay above that level, but contractual wages also had increases that led them to distance themselves significantly in most of the labor categories”.

For example, the Lear company, its salary tabulator in 2022, already contemplated salaries well above the minimum. “Consequently, the increases applied in the most recent salary review in that company, could reach 8.5% in most categories, being above inflation and far from the 20% experienced by the minimum wage of the Northern Border. In Lear’s tabulator, a higher salary of 510.00 pesos is established, which is 94.2% higher than the lowest category, of 262.50 pesos.

The Fujikura company, explained Retama, in its most recent contract review granted an adjustment to the various categories of its tabulator, with an average increase of 58%; even in the PKC company, of which there is public information, published by the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration, had in 2020 a tabulator with 12 categories, the lowest equivalent to the minimum wage. The highest category was 41.4% higher than the lowest.

Due to the above, the representation of the League demanded that the company demonstrate said situation with reports and documents in order to carry out an authentic collective bargaining and with respect for the labor rights of the workers.