Mexico

The Towards Effective Courts and Coordinated Labor Justice (TECLAB) project aims to support independent state labor courts created by Mexico’s 2019 Labor Law Reform to administer labor justice in an effective, efficient, and consistent manner.

The Sustentar project aims to increase private sector stakeholders’ accountability to uphold core labor standards consistent with Mexican labor laws and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s (USMCA) Labor Chapter, with a specific focus on addressing child labor, forced labor, and acceptable conditions of work.  The project will include a focus on states that produce chile peppers and tomatoes, including Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Chihuahua.

This project will enhance the effectiveness of the Government of Mexico to combat child labor and forced labor at the federal level and support specific interventions in the southern states of Chiapas, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. The duration of the project will be five years (60 months).

The Improving Working Conditions in the Mexican Automotive Supply Chain project is working to improve the quality of inspections and inspection follow-ups conducted by labor inspectors; strengthen government administration and coordination of the labor inspectorate and other institutions involved in labor law enforcement; and  strengthen the ability of labor courts and other institutions to effectively conciliate and adjudicate labor cases, including administration and coordination of union representation challenges.

Senderos — works with government, the private sector, and civil society to improve adherence to international standards on child labor, forced labor, occupational safety and health, and other acceptable conditions of work in the sugarcane and tobacco sectors in Jalisco and Nayarit. The project is building government capacity to enforce labor laws in agricultural supply chains, improving private sector awareness and compliance with labor laws, and increasing farmworkers’ knowledge of labor rights and grievances mechanisms.

The United States is the leading importer of coffee, accounting for over 18 percent of total coffee imports in the world, with Brazil and Colombia as the top suppliers. But before that coffee reaches our cups, tens of millions of workers globally select, pick, and process the beans. Many of those workers are children – toiling in the fields rather than learning in school.