The office says nine workers at Amphenol’s Nogales, Mexico, factory regained their jobs with full backpay and benefits, and directs pending customs-duty assessments to resume.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) declared the labor-rights case at Amphenol Optimize México’s factory in Nogales, Sonora, resolved after the company and Mexico implemented a plan agreed by the US and Mexico addressing employer interference in union activity and retaliatory dismissals. Nine dismissed workers have been reinstated with full backpay and benefits, the office said.
The case followed an April 11, 2025 petition from Sindicato Industrial Operaciones y Manufacturas, a Mexican labor union. The union alleged that Amphenol coerced workers to support the company-favored outcome in a union vote, discouraged membership in an independent union and retaliated against workers over their union preferences, including by dismissing them.
The US requested Mexico’s review on May 9, 2025, through the USMCA trade agreement’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism, a process for addressing labor-rights violations at individual facilities. Mexico accepted the request and investigated. The factory makes connectors, cables and components for the automotive and aerospace industries.
Beyond reinstating the nine workers, Amphenol adopted a neutrality statement and guidelines protecting freedom of association and collective bargaining, USTR said. These rights cover workers’ ability to form or join unions and negotiate employment terms as a group. The measures apply across the facility.
The company also installed and publicized a complaint system for reporting rights violations and breaches of company policy. Separately, Mexico’s government maintained an email address, reporting platform and telephone line for anonymous reports of possible unlawful interference or other violations of organizing and bargaining rights, with timely investigation of allegations, according to USTR.
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Mexican authorities delivered in-person training to all company personnel and monitored the facility throughout the review period, engaging with workers and the company, USTR said. The US concluded that there was no ongoing denial of rights.
Following the resolution, USTR directed the US Treasury secretary to resume “liquidation” of pending goods entries from the factory. In customs terms, liquidation means the final assessment of duties owed on imported goods. The direction resumes that assessment process; it does not create a new tariff exemption.
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