White House officials said Thursday that they expect Mexico to adopt by next week a package of legislative reforms that are intended to ensure the passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade through the U.S. Congress.
House Democrats have said they won’t consider a vote on the trade deal until Mexico reforms its labor laws. It is unclear, however, if Mexico’s planned reforms go far enough to satisfy the Democrats.
A senior White House official told reporters that Mexico’s Senate is expected to be taken up a reform bill “in very short order” and it will likely be signed by the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador by the end of the week. The official argued that legislation represents far-reaching reforms that demonstrate Mexico’s commitment to the agreement.
“If you look sat what the Mexicans are doing, it is nothing short of revolutionary. They are going to have secret ballot votes for the first time on collective bargaining agreements,” the official said. “And not just new collective bargaining agreements going forward. They’re going to go back and have secret ballot votes on all existing collective bargaining agreements that are in force today … north of 700,000 agreements.”
Mexican workers would get the secret ballot for other union matters, too. “They’re also going to have secret ballot votes on challenging union leadership and electing union leadership,” the official said.
Current labor laws give businesses in Mexico sway over union elections, resulting in labor leaders that accept contracts that don’t reflect the workers’ best interests, Democratic lawmakers and other critics say. Secret ballot elections would ensure independent union leadership that backed workers, those critics argue.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she will not allow a vote on the agreement until Mexico first adopts labor reforms. However Democrats have said previously that the proposed Mexican reforms did not go far enough and have not commented directly on the reform bill expected to be voted on next week.
“Democrats will evaluate after the reforms become law. We remain committed to ensuring labor provisions are strong and fully enforceable in the USMCA,” Aaron White, spokesman for Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., a member of the Ways and Means Committee, told the Washington Examiner earlier this week.
