Rethink Trade Celebrates USMCA Labor Rights Enforcement Win for Cross-Border Truck Drivers Moving Hyundai Products from Mexico to US
Case Filed by Rethink Trade and an Independent Mexican Truck Drivers’ Union Results in Access Protocol and Reinstatement of Union Leaders
Washington, D.C. — Rethink Trade welcomes yesterday’s signing of a union access agreement between Transportista Kamu S. de R.L., a Hyundai trucking services supplier, and the Sindicato de Transportistas de las Cadenas de Suministro (SITRABICS). The agreement grants union organizers access to workers and recognizes the union’s right to represent its members. This follows on workers wrongly fired for union activity being reinstated and obtaining back pay under the terms of a Course of Remediation that was formally announced on February 3, 2026.
The enforcement actions came in response to a June 2025 complaint filed by SITRABICS and Rethink Trade under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). The U.S. and Mexican governments found that the cross-border trucking firm had committed the labor rights violations the complaint alleged, including unlawful firing of union organizers, worker intimidation, and blacklisting of union leaders.
The resulting Course of Remediation required Transportista Kamu to sign the access agreement, recognize SITRABICS as a minority union, reinstate two union leaders with back pay, and compensate the union’s general secretary for illegal anti-union firings. The company fulfilled these requirements before SITRABICS agreed to formalize yesterday’s agreement.
“This week we are setting an important precedent for working people in Baja California,” said Jesús Iturbero Salinas, General Secretary of SITRABICS. “Thanks to the Course of Remediation, we are beginning to implement concrete commitments that recognize our long struggle for labor justice in the cross-border trucking industry at the Mexico–U.S. border. The USMCA and its Rapid Response Labor Mechanism were essential in securing justice for me and my coworkers, and in establishing an access and freedom of association protocol that guarantees our right to organize and carry out union work at this company.”
This case marks only the 11th Course of Remediation adopted under the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM), despite more than 56 petitions alleging labor rights violations having been filed with U.S. authorities.
“The signing of an access protocol between SITRABICS and a key Hyundai-controlled trucking facility, under an RRM Course of Remediation, is a historic victory for this nascent union,” said Daniel Rangel, a lawyer with Rethink Trade, one of the petitioners in the case. “By requiring the company to recognize the petitioner union, sign an access protocol, and acknowledge the labor rights violations it committed, this Course of Remediation sets an important precedent for future labor enforcement under the USMCA.”
In the context of a mandatory six-year review and likely renegotiation of the USMCA, Rethink Trade published a comprehensive review of all completed RRM cases and proposed reforms to make RRM more effective.
Rethink Trade is a program of the American Economic Liberties Project.
Learn more about Economic Liberties and Rethink Trade.
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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; international trade arrangements that promote promote balanced trade and benefit workers, farmers and small businesses; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.