Labor leaders’ desire for stronger implementation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s novel rapid-response mechanism has sparked some early trinational dialogue to shed light on a process they say has often kept them in the dark, according to a researcher who is helping facilitate that effort.
University of Georgia School of Law Assistant Professor Desirée LeClercq spoke in a recent interview about a developing sense of common cause that emerged during a roundtable held over the summer in Mexico City. Co-sponsored and hosted by LeClercq and colleagues at the Worker Institute at Cornell and two Mexican higher education institutions, El Colegio de Sonora and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, the event drew about 40 labor representatives and academics, including numerous RRM petitioners, to discuss the first-of-its-kind trade tool for addressing labor violations at facilities in Mexico and to consider what changes they might push for as the three countries gear up for a statutory trilateral review of the agreement, set for 2026.
LeClercq served as director of labor affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during President Trump’s first term, when USMCA was negotiated.
Some of the attendees, she noted, represent groups that are at times at odds, but their common experiences – and frustrations – with the RRM engendered what she described as a “solidaristic spirit” and openness to sharing information about a process that in many ways has been a “black box.”
She surveyed participants ahead of time about how many petitions they’d filed and the outcome of those efforts, answers she aggregated and presented as a jumping-off point.
“It was on the basis of that information that I was able to open it and say to them, ‘There’s a lot of black-boxing.... There’s a lot of petitions that are getting rejected for unclear reasons,’” LeClercq said.
Petitioners have faced similar challenges stemming from ambiguities in the agreement's text as well as opaque decision-making by the U.S. government, she said.
She and other close observers of the RRM have called on the U.S. to explain why it takes up some RRM petitions and not others. USTR and the Labor Department, which jointly oversee RRM cases, typically announce petitions only if they decide to pursue them. A USTR spokesperson confirmed to Inside U.S. Trade late last year that the U.S. at that point had taken up 29 of the 54 petitions it had received to date and had self-initiated another two cases.
LeClercq described the conference as a step toward filling in that information gap: “It really was a matter of getting all of the those involved in the petitions process to start to trust one another, to reveal their hands, with the understanding that governments weren't going to help us – that it really is up to us to start to try to inject some daylight into this process.”
She is hopeful such collaboration will continue, citing participant calls for an ongoing communication channel, among a slew of other suggestions generated during the conference.
LeClercq, along with El Colegio de Sonora professor Alex Covarrubias-V and Cirila Quintero Ramirez, a research professor at El Colegio de Frontera Norte, Unidad Matamoros, previously surveyed workers on their experiences with the RRM, concluding in a study last year that it had disproportionately served a relatively narrow group of workers with ties to major U.S. unions and non-governmental organizations, without raising labor standards in Mexico overall.
The Trump administration to date has appeared more willing than its predecessor to take up cases involving smaller facilities, LeClercq said, describing this as a positive step. But ultimately, she said, petitioners want to find ways to “embed protections” in the mechanism to ensure implementation is consistent.
Participants offered several suggestions to that end, including a proposal for a system to allow labor stakeholders to verify the status of a petition and another that would entail establishing an independent body to review petitions and assess denials of rights. (The latter is echoed in a recent report by Rethink Trade, one of the conference participants.)
They also voiced concerns about what LeClercq described as “procedural weaknesses” in the mechanism that have left workers vulnerable to retaliation if they speak up about abuses.
Though U.S. guidelines on RRM submissions do not require petitioners to provide the names of witnesses, discussants said that information had become a de facto requirement – and it isn't being treated confidentially, she said.
“Apparently, across the auto sector, companies are becoming aware of the names of the witnesses,” she said, noting that participants reported those workers, as a result, not only risk losing their jobs but the ability to find other work. Some also face serious threats to their lives and safety.
Instances of violence, threats and blacklisting of workers involved in RRM cases are documented in a new report by the Independent Mexico Labor Export Board that finds that Mexico has fallen short of its labor commitments under USMCA. The panel, established by Congress to monitor Mexico’s implementation of an ambitious labor reform mandated under the trade agreement, echoes a call LeClercq heard from participants for strengthening confidentiality protections for witnesses, among numerous other changes to the mechanism.
Other stakeholders are likely to weigh in on the RRM’s operation and broader questions about Mexico’s labor reform in the coming weeks, ahead of USTR’s Nov. 3 deadline for public input to inform the 2026 USMCA review. The issue appears to be on the administration’s radar already; U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers ahead of his confirmation earlier this year that he would review IMLEB's report, among other input, to evaluate Mexico’s work to meet its USMCA commitments, and in a press conference last week, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum cited labor as an example of issues the U.S. had raised in ongoing bilateral trade talks.
That some workers have faced retaliation for using the RRM was not unknown, LeClercq noted, citing allegations that workers were blacklisted after they lost their jobs at Manufacturas VU, an automotive parts maker that shuttered after it was subject to two RRM complaints. But the extent of such practices, as described by RRM petitioners, was greater than she had anticipated.
“I learned that VU was the norm. I thought it was the exception,” she said.
The Biden administration in 2024 sparked criticism from the United Auto Workers when it declined to bring an RRM case involving allegations of blacklisting. A trade official at the time told the New York Times that USTR was looking into such systemic issues, suggesting that a variety of tools might be needed.
Participants additionally stressed a need for workers to have a voice in RRM remediation plans – agreements they said have increasingly been negotiated without their input by the Mexican government and corporations – and for companies that have violated worker rights to face sanctions, concerns also highlighted in the IMLEB report.
LeClercq also cited “disappointment” among petitioners about approaches taken by RRM panels, saying they have applied “restrictive” interpretations where the text is ambiguous, for instance, on the definition of a “covered facility.” Such decisions, she said, further fuel a sense of “allyship between the governments and the corporations.”
Of two RRM panels completed to date, one sided with Mexico in finding it did not have jurisdiction in the dispute and a second sided with the U.S., finding a denial of rights that had not been sufficiently remediated. Both rulings followed much wrangling over jurisdictional questions that some analysts believe are not within panels’ mandate. (IMLEB similarly raises concern about the panel process, including how a panel determines whether a facility is covered; it suggests striking a provision in USMCA that “created an inappropriate role” for panels to make such determinations and putting the burden on companies to produce evidence to the U.S. and Mexico to show they are not covered, among other changes.)
LeClercq contended that the 2026 review could offer a good opportunity to provide clarity and guidelines on the panel process.
But one of the biggest takeaways from the conference, she stressed, was a need for solidarity among labor groups in the three countries.
“Unions are getting fewer resources and yet are up against what's increasingly looking like a unified resistance across government and corporations,” she said, questioning whether Mexico’s labor reform, mandated under USMCA, had produced meaningful change.
“One of the questions to ask ourselves,” she added, is “are we moving away from this protectionist, corporatist environment in Mexico, or have we just reproduced it under a different instrument?” -- Margaret Spiegelman (mspiegelman@iwpnews.com)