[CTC] AFL-CIO: Mexico’s labor reform budget proposals ‘alarming,’ unsatisfactory

[Arthur Stamoulis]

AFL-CIO: Mexico’s labor reform budget proposals ‘alarming,’ unsatisfactory
By Maria Curi, Inside US Trade 
09/10/2019

The AFL-CIO disapproves of Mexico’s budget proposals for labor reform in 2020, a trade specialist with the union federation told Inside U.S. Trade.
 
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador submitted his budget proposals to Mexico’s Congress on Sunday. They include long-anticipated plans for the implementation of labor reforms called for in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The lower chamber has until Nov. 15 to approve a budget.
 
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and some Democratic lawmakers have said they must know what resources and infrastructure will be put toward labor reform implementation before they can decide whether to back USMCA. Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Martha Bárcena in July said the budget proposal would offer needed details to U.S. lawmakers and labor advocates who were seeking reassurances that Mexico would fully implement its reforms.
 
But the proposal unveiled this week “raises some serious red flags about their fiscal ability to carry out these reforms in this critical time for USMCA,” the AFL-CIO source said.
 
After performing a “topline analysis” of the budget proposal, the specialist said it was “not in the direction we would hope to see given the enormous challenge they have to implement reform."
 
In particular, the budget proposal suggests a 35.8 percent cut to Mexico’s Labor Ministry, which the source called “alarming."
 
The majority of the cut would hit a program for youth employment, which is unrelated to the labor reform legislation, the specialist said, “but in other categories we’re seeing cuts or small increases.”
 
The AFL-CIO source called the analysis of the proposal preliminary and said the labor group would “study it further,” but added the onus would be on the Mexican government to explain the proposal.
 
“What I don’t see is a specific line item that says this is for labor reform. It might be spread across a number of categories. It’s on them to explain,” the specialist said.
 
The Mexican Embassy responded to the AFL-CIO’s reaction by pointing to two Monday tweets from Mexican Labor Minister Luisa María Alcalde Luján.
 
The budget “guarantees ... Compliance with the terms of the labor reform through the creation of the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration for the last quarter of next year,” Alcalde Luján said in one tweet.
 
In a second tweet, Alcalde Luján said that “In order to meet the terms of the Labor Reform, three stages of implementation are contemplated,” with the first to begin in “the last quarter of 2020” and cover “10 entities.” Alcalde Luján said the budget proposal “supports” the first stage “with more than $523 million,” adding another $267 million would be needed.
 
The AFL-CIO source said U.S. lawmakers also should request more explanation from the Mexican government.
 
The trade staff at the House Ways & Means Committee as of Tuesday “has not had a chance to look through that [the budget] thoroughly yet,” a panel spokesperson told Inside U.S. Trade.
 
Trumka last week was in Mexico City to discuss labor reform implementation.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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