Mexican General Motors workers in the Silao, Guanajuato, factory complex clinched record raises after staring down company scaremongering about tariff threats.

“They said, well, we’re offering 6 percent,” said Norma Leticia Cabrera Vasquez about management’s offer at bargaining.

“We knew they were going to show up with that, but we said, ‘We still have weeks to negotiate, so we won’t let that intimidate us,’” said Cabrera Vasquez, who worked at the plant for 15 years, and now serves as a leader of the union’s Women’s Department.

In spite of the company’s efforts to stoke uncertainty, auto workers stood their ground, garnering wage increases of 10 percent on average.

Workers in tiers making up 60 percent of the workforce will receive a raise of 10.25%; the other 40 percent will see a 9.25 percent increase. They also eliminated the lowest tier in the workforce — as such, the plant’s starting wage jumped up by 33.95 percent, to about $3 per hour. This is the second time the union has won double-digit increases, bringing GM Silao workers to the top edge of Mexico’s auto industry, with the plant’s highest-paid earners bringing in about $7 per hour.

If they continue their double-digit winning streak, workers could approach parity with some U.S. autoworkers within a decade: within nine years, the highest-earning workers could reach $16 an hour.

The new wage scale lifts two-thirds of the workforce above Mexico’s family poverty line, and well above Mexico’s minimum wage of about $1.71 per hour. The minimum itself has been raised sharply since 2018, between 12 and 22 percent each year under Mexico’s left-wing MORENA party. A proposed nationwide shift to a 40-hour workweek without a reduction in pay (Mexico’s workweek is currently capped at 48 hours) would also mark a significant advance.

Their union, SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union), emerged from workers’ efforts to oust their previous corrupt “charro” union, a Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) affiliate notorious for arranging pro-employer “protection contracts”, which lock in low wages and keep workers from forming a legitimate union, at the plant.

Union leadership said they didn’t let the uncertainty around tariffs scare them........

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