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11 March, 2025Some 1,000 members of the Independent Mexican Workers’ League (La Liga) are demanding fair union elections in a bid to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement at Pirelli Tyres.
The workers want Pirelli Mexico to guarantee free and fair union elections at the plant in Silao, Guanajuato State, so that workers can elect a union to represent them in the collective bargaining process.
However, they claim that Pirelli’s management has given every advantage to the current incumbent, the Miguel Trujillo union, which is part of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). They also say that company managers have harassed workers, given them false information and threatened to take their contractual benefits away and that members of the Miguel Trujillo union have also tried to hinder their work.
Susana Hernandez Melendez, who has worked at Pirelli for 13 years, said:
“We are fighting to improve the benefits that all workers receive under the collective bargaining agreement. The company will soon mark its 14th anniversary and we still haven’t received any benefits because of the CTM union. We are working to increase La Liga membership, but CTM members keep trying to sabotage our work.”
The workers also say that Pirelli Mexico tried to convince the judge to throw out La Liga’s petition to run to represent workers in the collective bargaining process, falsely claiming that La Liga did not have enough members to do so. There have also been attempts to get unions that do not represent any workers at the company to bid for the collective bargaining process in order to delay the vote.
La Liga members believe that Pirelli is resisting because it does not want to apply the union contract covering the Mexican rubber industry, which is one of the few sector-specific contracts in Mexico and one that undoubtedly offers major economic and work-related benefits for workers.
Even though all rubber manufacturers in Mexico are required to apply the union contract, some companies such as Pirelli, have avoided implementing it. Instead, they have imposed collective bargaining agreements that are much worse in terms of economic benefits and labour relations.
Juan Carlos Barriento Ramírez, who has also worked at Pirelli for 13 years, said:
“Throughout this entire time, the company and the current union have hidden the union contract from us. Pirelli has 19 plants worldwide and we are the second-most productive, yet our wages are the lowest. That’s why we are fighting for the union contract to be applied. We won’t rest until we have achieved our goal and reclaimed our rights as workers.”
In mid-2024, the workers filed a petition under the Rapid Response Mechanism provided for in the labour chapter of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USCMA). The US delegation found that the workers had been denied their rights, as the union contract for the Mexican rubber industry had not been applied.
The Mexican government, however found otherwise, stating that the company could simply integrate a few of the economic benefits set out in the union contract into the collective bargaining agreement without having to apply the sector-specific union contract in full.
In response, Pirelli workers are looking to hold union elections so that they can democratically elect the union of their choice. They want to win union representation in the collective bargaining process in order to demand full application of the union contract at the company.
IndustriALL Global Union general secretary, Atle Høie, wrote to Pirelli Mexico CEO Enrico Verdino and the Mexican authorities, calling on them to guarantee free and fair elections at the plant in Silao, Guanajuato State:
“IndustriALL considers that you must ensure that all workers that can be unionized at Pirelli Tyres are able to exercise their right to vote freely, secretly and in a well-informed manner, based on the principles of Mexican labour law and international conventions. We call for compliance with International Labour Organization Conventions Nos. 87 and 98, which promote freedom of association and collective bargaining.”