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

The announcement is encouraging, noted U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

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 also will 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 also will 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.”

Brown and Wyden said they fought for and successfully secured important provision as part of the USMCA, for the first time, empowering workers to bring cases alleging labor violations at the facility level. The new agreement allows workers in Mexico to report when a company is violating their rights, and see action within months if it’s determined that workers’ rights have been violated. It would also apply punitive damages when corporations stop workers from organizing and stop goods from coming into the U.S. if these anti-worker tactics continue.

The voting complaint was filed in May under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, after the old-guard union was caught allegedly destroying ballots. A new union is trying to unseat the old labor group at the plant. For decades, corrupt Mexican unions signed low-wage “protection contracts” behind workers’ backs.

The rapid response mechanisms under the trade pact allows a panel to determine whether Mexico is enforcing labor laws that allow workers to choose their union and vote on contracts and union leadership. If Mexico is found not to be enforcing its laws, sanctions could be invoked, including prohibiting some products from entering the United States. The May complaint was the first to be filed under the USMCA.

Mexican autoworkers make one-eighth to one-tenth of the wages of their U.S. counterparts, something that has spurred a massive relocation of auto plants to Mexico and a loss of U.S. jobs.

For decades, union votes in Mexico were held by show of hands, or not at all. Workers at many factories in Mexico were unaware they even had a union until they saw dues deducted from their paychecks.

As part of efforts to get the USMCA, which replaced the old North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico passed labor law reforms stating all union votes would be by secret ballot, and workers at all factories in Mexico could vote on whether to keep their current union.