The federal government contemplates for the next year assigning to the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration (CFCRL) a bag of 709.8 million pesoswhich implies an item higher by 132.7 million than the one approved for this year, according to the General Economic Policy Precriteria 2023 presented by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
This increase in CFCRL resources, which translates into a 18% increase In real terms, it is the highest growth within the branch of work of the Federal Public Administration compared to other priority programs such as Youth Building the Future (JCF), labor law enforcement and the subsidy that entities can access to implement the labor reform of 2019.
“The new modifications to the legal framework of the labor market represent a paradigm shift, since they establish that competitiveness persists with the improvement of working conditions, this is verified in the solid dynamism of the Mexican labor marketdespite the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic”, is highlighted in the document sent to the Chamber of Deputies.
in conversation with The EconomistAlfredo Domínguez Marrufo, general director of the CFCRL, explains that the resources planned for 2023 respond to the implementation of the new labor model in 12 entities this year and to the strengthening of the Labor Center for the verification of processes of the legitimation of collective contracts or the election of union leaders.
“It is fundamentally to be in the best capacity to attend to the verification of union democracy procedures. On the one hand, that we have more personnel in verification tasks in processes such as the elections of union leaders, the consultations for the approval of the new collective contracts or the negotiation agreements”, he points out.
This year concludes the implementation of the labor reform of 2019 with the opening of CFCRL offices, local conciliation centers, federal and local courts in Nuevo León, Mexico City, Jalisco, Yucatán, Michoacán, Sonora, Sinaloa, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Tamaulipas and Nayarit. The implementation of the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration in these states is another reason why an increase in resources is expected.
“When you open a new institution, obviously the demand for procedures does not arrive in the first days and even in the first months. To make a comparison with what happened in the first and second stages of implementation of the reform, when we started on November 18, 2020 in the midst of a pandemic, the request for paperwork it increased gradually, approximately in August of last year we already began to have a much more stable demand”, explains Domínguez Marrufo.
The gradual growth in the demand for work in the CFCRL was also observed when he assumed his registry tasks. “Last year we started with the national registry of all collective agreements and unions, but it was not immediately that the unions arrived trying to make their leadership renewals, modifications of statutes or salary revisions, it has been increasing gradually. Every month that passes we have increases, derived from the fact that the actors in the world of work still do not know the new model and there is always a learning curve process and becoming familiar with digital procedures.”
Due to the growth in the demand for work for registry functions and its role as “referee” in the processes of union democracy and collective bargaining, the CFRCL is requesting growth in its resources, says the federal official.
The reform budget
For this year, the budget earmarked for the implementation of labor reform had an increase of 131%, with a total bag of 5,478 million pesos between the resources assigned to the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration, the Judicial Power of the Federation and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare to conclude with the last phase of implementation.
In sum, the new labor model has had an investment close to 10,000 million pesos in the three years that the new labor authorities have been in operation, their resources exceed the annual budgets of the Chamber of Senators or the Ministry of Economy.
In addition to the resources allocated by the federal government, the United States has allocated just over $300 million For the application of the labor reform in our country, resources have been used for training and advisory issues, but have not been exercised by the Mexican authorities.
“As a result of the T-MEC negotiations, the 2019 labor reform established a new model of labor justice which includes the creation of Conciliation and Labor Registration Centers, which have reduced the time for resolving labor conflicts from four years to six months and give rise to expeditious and impartial resolutions, reducing transaction costs for deliberation for employers and workers” , is highlighted in the General Economic Policy Precriteria 2023.