Despite calls for union organizations to legitimize their current collective bargaining agreements, data from the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration (CFCRL) reveal that in the next three months 566 contract legitimations will be carried out in which 244 union organizations participate.
The deadline for unions, in accordance with the 2019 labor reform and Mexico’s trade agreement with the United States and Canada (T-MEC)expires on May 1, 2023, so those collective bargaining agreements that have not been ratified by the workers will be considered terminated.
In this sense, the scenarios that are expected, on the one hand, involve the workers who will be able to determine if they want to be without a union; join to form a new one or join a pre-existing one.
In the case of unions, as of May 1, 2023, they will have to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement and for this they must process their Certificate of Representativeness, if they do not obtain the support of the workers, the company will be without a collective agreement and , from this, they are able to promote an environment free of unions.
Paul Frank, labor specialist and author of the book “Labor Reform for All”, explained that “as of May 2023 many things can happen, one of them is to sign a new contract, but for this to happen, the union must first obtain a Certificate of Representativeness, with this it demonstrates that a part of the workers to whom the contract will apply supports that union to negotiate with the company; for this it requires 30% of votes”.
The same Center, headed by Alfredo Domínguez Marrufo, has reported that the progress of the collective contracts, after almost three years in which the process began, totals 4,666 legitimations and one million 549,000 workers have been consulted, with a free, direct and secret vote. , a figure far from the 550,000 contracts that the labor authority had planned.
At the time, the Secretary of labor and social security, Luisa Maria Mayor, estimated that in 4 years between 10,000 and 15,000 contracts will have to be legitimized, “that is more or less the forecast, although it has been increasing in these months, a little more than 4,000 have been legitimized; but many wait in the end; and the reading that we can give to that behavior is that there was a lot of simulation. The system itself opted for protection contracts,” he said.
Until last week’s cut, the number of registered legitimations barely exceeds 566 between June and the first days of September; and the union organization that will have the most events in these months is the National Union of Workers of the Food, Refreshment, Tourism, Hotel, Gastronomy, Similar and Related Industries, who will carry out 22 legitimations.
Among the companies that appear on the list are: Iberdrola Cogeneración Altamira; Jafra Commercial Distributor; Soriana Stores; suburbia; Liverpool; Walmart and Grupo Posadas.
It is worth noting that in this entire process, 39 contracts have been terminated, including General Motors and Panasonic.