MEXICO CITY – The Mexican and U.S. governments announced a plan to resolve a U.S. labor complaint over attempts to steal a union vote at an auto plant in northern Mexico.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called the announcement encouraging.

The Economy Department promised this week to punish any voting abuses and provide inspectors at a new vote at the General Motors plant in the city of Silao, set to be held before Aug. 20. The vote is to be held inside the plant, not at the offices of the union that allegedly tried to destroy ballots.

Labor Department inspectors will be allowed inside the plant to prevent intimidation tactics starting next week, and observers from the International Labor Organization will also be allowed in.

It was unclear, however, if those promises would be enough. Workers at the plant have complained the old Confederation of Mexican Workers union has already tried tactics such as promises and threats in speeches to shop stewards, or offering to raffle off cars, in order to win the vote.

Brown said the announcement will also remediate GM’s initial denial of the right of free association and collective bargaining to workers at the facility. This first course of remediation is a result of the worker-empowering provisions Brown and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, secured through their Rapid Response Mechanism as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and reflects the shared intent of the U.S. and Mexico that trade must benefit workers.

“For decades, Ohioans have seen factories shuttered and their jobs shipped overseas because of trade policies that put corporations first. I wrote the Brown­ Wyden provision to deliver results for American workers, and that’s what it’s doing,” Brown said in a statement. “To stop the corporate business model that shuts down factories in Ohio and moves jobs overseas, we must raise labor standards in every country we trade with.”