End Litigation Industry: Mayor

The new labor model that is being implemented in Mexico implies the end of the “litigation industry” that came to generate insurmountable conditions for workers’ access to justice.

It is a radical change that ends with the “coyotaje, chicanas and traps”, assures the Secretary of Labor, Luisa María Alcalde.

It is about the institutional transformation that is being developed as part of the Labor Reform and the commitments in the matter of the T-MEC.

The second stage of application of the new labor model has already begun in 13 states of the Mexican Republic.

After the first 8 in which progress has already been made and in the perspective that in a third stage it will be implemented in the remaining 11 entities, next year 2022.

What is happening is institutional transformation. The Conciliation and Arbitration Boards close and the Conciliation and Court Centers begin activity.

Esteban Martínez Mejía, head of the Liaison Unit for Labor Reform of the STPS, recently reported on the general progress in terms of legislative harmonization; the process of digitizing and classifying the registration files of the Local Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, as well as the adaptation of union statutes and the legitimization of collective contracts.

And the head of the Federal Center for Labor Conciliation and Registration, Alfredo Domínguez Marrufo, is responsible for the entry contest for the personnel that will join the new headquarters of the Center in the states. On November 3, the National Register of Trade Unions started. , which will allow a public record of the activity of these workers’ organizations in the country.

The intention is for the registry to operate under the principles of maximum transparency and maximum publicity, giving access to workers, employers and the general public to all information on collective contracts, union leaders, internal labor regulations, among other documents. It is not only institutional change. It is the change in the model of labor justice that seeks greater freedom and union democracy.

It means saying goodbye to long and endless labor lawsuits. The idea is that instead of processes that took up to 6 years to be resolved, reconciliations are now achieved in days or at the latest in months.

The Conciliation Centers will have to use the most effective tools for the parties to find equitable solutions and will have a period of 45 days to turn the cases to court in case of failure.

The head of the Ministry of Labor, trusts that a new course is being traced for labor relations in Mexico.

From the looks of it, the intention is good. It remains to be seen how it works in fact.

In recent months and weeks we have seen a very severe struggle, reminiscent of the clashes of the past, between trade union organizations for the ownership of collective contracts.

The two main workers’ centrals that have faced each other are the Catem, by Pedro Haces, and the CTM, by Carlos Humberto Aceves del Olmo.

The differences were registered in a strategic sector, the automotive sector and, in one of the government’s flagship works, the Dos Bocas refinery. In the first case it was even activated a couple of times, the rapid response mechanism by the EU, for GM and Tridonex.

In the second, the government acted immediately to quell the disagreements.

Hopefully the Labor Reform is indeed the end of the litigation industry, but also the end of the era of union corporatism. We will see.

Glimpses

The directors of the IMSS and ISSSTE recognized that there have been delays and intermittences in the delivery times of medicines and their supply during their appearance before senators of the Health and Social Security commissions. Zoé Robledo stressed that in the face of Covid-19, the IMSS did not fail the people of Mexico. The heads of both institutes rendered accounts with a terse treatment from the legislators.

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