In a historic victory for international labor rights, thousands of Mexican workers at a General Motors plant in the city of Silao, Guanajuato, have voted to form an independent union. The union election was the first ever since the implementation of new labor reforms in Mexico, written into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Many powerful unions in Mexico, with ties to elite politicians and businesspeople, had for years gone behind workers’ backs to make deals with multinational corporations to keep workers’ pay low and deny them other benefits. With an independent union, GM workers in Silao have now broken ties with one of Mexico’s most influential labor organizations, which had held the plant’s contract for 25 years.