Video still: Sindicato Minero “Los Mineros” union members protest at the Embassy of Canada in Mexico City, April 2026.
The Government of Mexico is reportedly reviewing allegations that Orla Mining, the Vancouver-based company that operates the Camino Rojo gold mine in Mazapil, Zacatecas, Mexico, may have allowed the Operativa Flechas faction of the Sinaloa cartel violate the labour rights of Mexican workers seeking to unionize this Canadian owned mine through the independent National Union of Workers for Mining, Metalworking and Similar Workers (Mineros Union) in early 2024.
CBC News reports: “Mexico’s security cabinet is reviewing allegations a prominent organized crime group was involved in strong-arming workers at a Canadian-owned gold mine so they would vote for its management’s preferred union, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday [April 14].”
The article adds: “[A] three-member CUSMA rapid response labour panel concluded that management at the Camino Rojo mine denied workers their labour rights. …The U.S. alleges in its publicly available filings that an individual, nicknamed ‘el Mocho’ and ‘el Paul’, who was part of the Sinaloa cartel faction Operativa Flechas, was hired on contract by the Camino Rojo mine. …El Paul allegedly ‘attended and interrupted’ Mineros Union meetings with ‘armed individuals’, according to the filings.”
ContraRéplica has previously reported: “The panel documented that the company had hired a drug trafficker to disrupt union meetings with armed individuals, issue death threats, and pressure employees to leave their organization and join a union affiliated with the company.”
In October 2024, members of the Mineros Union held a protest about this situation in front of the Embassy of Canada in Mexico City.
At that time, La Jornada reported: “The protesters pointed out that a remedy is required based on Conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labor Organization on freedom of association and the right of association for the defense of their labor rights. They also demand that the resolution, within the framework of the trade agreement, include the protection and guarantee of security for the integrity of union leaders.”
And Reforma reported: “Outside the embassy, the protesters demanded that the company give the miners the freedom to choose the union of their choice. ‘Government of Canada, we ask for your intervention, so that freedom of association is respected,’ stressed the dissidents of section 335 of the mining union.”
The Global Affairs Canada Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders notes: “HRDs sometimes focus on specific categories of rights or the rights of specific persons. They may … focus on specific themes such as labour rights.” The voluntary guidelines suggest “missions can play a significant role to protect” human rights defenders by “supporting investigative processes into alleged acts of intimidation, threats, violence and other abuses…”
CBC News reports that Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) said in an emailed statement that the federal government was “deeply concerned about these allegations” and it was reviewing the CUSMA labour panel’s findings. Their statement says: “Canada takes the matter very seriously and expects all Canadian companies operating abroad to abide by all relevant laws.”
The review announced by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum comes in the lead-up to Canada-Mexico Dialogue on Human Rights and Multilateral Affairs that is expected to take place in late-May in Ottawa.
We continue to follow this.
Additional reading
–USMCA panel: Canadian company used organized crime to violate the labour rights of mine workers in Mexico (April 10, 2026)
–PBI-Canada seeks strengthened protection for human rights defenders who advocate for labour rights, the right of association (March 12, 2026).
