Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent a letter to President Biden yesterday urging him to fulfill a campaign pledge and bar companies that violate federal labor law from receiving any of the hundreds of billions of dollars flowing under federal contracts.

Sanders’ letter highlights that in recent years Amazon in particular has secured thousands of federal contracts, collectively worth billions of dollars, while aggressively engaging in unlawful unionbusting conduct and spending millions on antiunion consultants. As chair of the budget committee, he has scheduled a hearing for next week to shed light on the scale of federal contracts being awarded to unionbusting companies, with particular focus on Amazon.

Reuters reported yesterday that the newly installed independent union representing thousands of workers at GM’s sprawling compound in Mexico is demanding a nearly 20 percent wage increase in negotiations for a first contract. For background, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trilateral free trade compact that superseded NAFTA in 2020, included provisions requiring that Mexico — where as many as 85 percent of collective bargaining agreements are bogus “protection contracts” — reform its law to meaningfully protect labor rights. Mexico complied in Jan. 2019, overhauling its labor law regime to guarantee workers the right to freely organize and select unions by secret ballot; require the election of union officers; establish independent institutions to administer union elections and adjudicate labor disputes; and mandate member ratification of collective bargaining agreements.

Relying on these protections, employees at the GM plant, located in Silao, Guanajuato, expelled their company-dominated protection union in a dramatic episode last year and installed a newly formed independent one in its place, a milestone applauded by U.S. labor leaders. These high profile negotiations will shed light on the durability of the drive to uproot Mexico’s entrenched network of corrupt unions and democratize its labor movement.