Mexico: deputies approve reform on trade union rights (brief)

On Thursday 11 April, deputies in the Mexican congress approved the reform to the country's Federal Labor Law, requested by the United States as a prerequisite for the ratification of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) (see article n°11013 on the bill). The text will have to be put to a vote by senators in the coming weeks. Over recent days, regulation of outsourcing has been excluded from parliamentary debates, with a view to maintaining clarity and coherence. The reform, which is ambitious and innovative, focuses, on the one hand, on making sure the 2017 constitutional reform on justice in the workplace, which demanded the creation of labour tribunals linked to the justice system (see article n°9663), comes to fruition and, on the other, on ratifying Convention 98 of the International Labor Organization, which upholds trade union freedoms and the right to collective bargaining. The reform of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law establishes precise rules for the selection of trade union leaders, through personal, free, direct and secret voting, putting an end to what are known in Mexico as ‘white unions’, created and led by employers. The reform also replaces the ‘Juntas de Conciliación y Arbitraje’, which are corrupt, ineffective and overloaded bodies, with ‘tribunales laborales’, employment tribunals linked to the judiciary. Finally an independent national centre for conciliation and registration of trade union organisations (Centro Nacional de Conciliación y Registros Laborales) is to be set up under the reform.