The workers of the General Motors plant in Silao, Guanajuato, elected the Independent Union of Workers of the Automotive Industry (SINTTIA) to represent them before the company. In the vote, held on February 1 and 2, 5,480 workers participated.
The Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration, which is the new decentralized public body in charge of registering unions and collective contracts at the national level, reported that Sinttia obtained 4,192 votes, compared to the National Union of Workers of the Automotive and Metallurgical Industry in the Mexican Republic, which registered 932 votes.
The other two unions that participated in the vote, the National of Workers of the Industry of Workers of the Autotransport, Construction, of the Automotive Industry, Autoparts, Similar and Related of the Mexican Republic of the Mexican Republic, and the National of Workers of the Industries, Commerce and Services in General ‘Carrillo Puerto’, obtained 247 and 18 votes, respectively. There were also 89 invalid votes.
The American manufacturer recognized and thanked in a statement “the active participation of the employees” in the process and assured that “they exercised their right to choose the union that will represent them.” “General Motors will act in compliance with the law to work with the trade union representation elected by the workers, SINTTIA, with the aim of starting the negotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement for the manufacturing complex in Silao,” the company assured.
The independent union that won the election is made up of workers from the automotive complex, most of them sympathizers of the dissident movement Generando Movimiento, created in 2019 with the aim of forming an independent union that could be an alternative to the CTM that was then.
The Silao plant was built in 1995, after the opening of trade with the United States and Canada under the umbrella of NAFTA. Since then, various unions have represented workers at the complex, but all have been linked to the CTM.
The workers had stated that working conditions in the factory had worsened since 2008, the year in which the ‘Miguel Trujillo López’ union began to represent them. For this reason, they decided not to legitimize, in another vote held in August 2021, the collective contract they had in force.
That first vote opened the opportunity to have a new union leadership, which had to be chosen by a “personal, free and secret” vote. Now, and after the result, the independent union will be in charge of representing them before the company in the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement.
The process established by the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration, General Motors must await the final resolution that will be formally notified within the following days.
