USMCA Technical Assistance

The Mexico Awareness Raising project aims to support the government of Mexico, including the federal and state-level Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, to design, execute, and sustain effective communication strategies that inform workers, unions, and employers of the legal ramifications of the country’s labor law reforms.

Part of the broader Vision Zero Fund - which aims to promote worker safety and health in global supply chains – this project aims to improve the occupational safety and health of workers in selected supply chains with a focus on COVID-19, female workers, and workers in vulnerable conditions. This project also helps Mexico meet its labor obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

To build the capacity of workers, support worker engagement and organizing, and strengthen democratic worker organizations in the aerospace, mining, and call center industries, such that they become protagonists in fulfilling the potential of Mexico’s historic labor reform. The project will offer workers and their organizations expert technical assistance, ongoing skills development, and pro bono advisory and legal services. Additionally, the project will create spaces for analysis, exchange, reflection, and the development of recommendations to improve labor law reform implementation.

The Mexico Auto Employers project aims to bring automotive sector employers into compliance with the country’s labor law reforms while improving working conditions in the automotive supply sector. The project strives to reach this goal by raising awareness of the labor reforms, supporting employers to implement relevant provisions and proactively adopt policies for compliance, and strengthening industrial relations between employers and workers.

This project enhances governments’ capacity to create, implement, and monitor the application of labor laws by working with ministries of labor, labor judges, and other judicial labor authorities. It seeks to use data collected from labor inspections to identify gaps that facilitate violations and to support legal reforms to address them. The project also uses data analytics to identify and combat labor inspection corruption, waste and inefficiency, and identifies regional inspection units in need of training and capacity building.

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.

Campos de Esperanza (Fields of Hope) engages the government, the private sector, and civil society to reduce child labor in migrant agricultural communities, particularly in the coffee and sugarcane sectors in Veracruz and Oaxaca. The project links children and youth to existing educational programs and refers vulnerable households to existing government programs to improve income and reduce the need for child labor.