For the first time in 2025, and thirty-second time overall, the United States has sought Mexico’s review under the USMCA’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism.
WASHINGTON – United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced today that the United States has asked Mexico to review whether workers at Compañía Hulera Tornel, S.A. de C.V., (Tornel), located in Mexico City and in Estado de Mexico, Mexico, are being denied the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The United States has suspended liquidation of tariffs on goods from the Tornel facility, which is a facility that specializes in converting rubber into tires. The request, which was made in response to a petition, marks the thirty-second time the United States has formally invoked the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM) in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
“This marks the third Rapid Response Mechanism case under Mexico’s sector-wide agreement for the rubber industry, and it serves as a powerful reminder of the growing awareness among workers about their rights and what this mechanism can do for them when those rights are not respected,” said Ambassador Katherine Tai. “The Biden-Harris Administration remains deeply committed to working with the Government of Mexico to ensure that workers at this facility – and across the sector – are treated with dignity and fairness.”
“Every Mexican worker in the rubber industry deserves the full benefits negotiated in the sector-wide agreement. Any company attempting to skirt providing these benefits is violating Mexican labor law and the provisions of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” said Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs Thea Lee. “This is the third RRM case in the rubber sector, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with the Mexican government to ensure these workers receive what they are due.”
Background
The United States Trade Representative and the Secretary of Labor co-chair the Interagency Labor Committee for Monitoring and Enforcement (ILC). On December 9, 2024, the ILC received an RRM petition from the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Compañía Hulera Tornel, S.A. de C.V., Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, de la República Mexicana, an independent Mexican union. The petition alleges Tornel is not applying the sector-wide agreement (the “contrato ley”) covering the rubber manufacturing industry at the facility and is instead applying a singular collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) with benefits inferior to those in the contrato ley. The ILC reviews RRM petitions that it receives, and the accompanying information, within 30 days.
After conducting this review, the ILC determined that there is sufficient, credible evidence of a denial of rights enabling the good faith invocation of enforcement mechanisms. As a result, the United States Trade Representative has submitted a request to the Mexican government that Mexico review whether workers at Tornel are being denied the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining through Tornel’s failure to abide by the standards of the contrato ley. Mexico has 10 days to agree to conduct a review and, if it agrees, 45 days from today to complete the review.
A copy of the request for review can be found here.
A copy of the letter to the Secretary of the Treasury can be found here.
Information about previous requests can be found here.
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