[CTC] Mexican Supreme Court to consider challenges of new labor law

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Mexican Supreme Court to consider challenges of new labor law
By Isabelle Icso, Inside US Trade
06/25/2020
Mexico’s Supreme Court is set to consider challenges to the constitutionality of 2019 labor legislation required by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which will enter into force next week.
Over the past year, Mexican labor unions -- most of them employer-dominated -- have filed more than 100 challenges <https://insidetrade.com/node/166743>in district courts. The cases, all based on similar complaints about the labor law’s requirements, were recently consolidated and sent to the Supreme Court.
The labor law -- passed last year -- includes provisions designed to eradicate protection contracts, which are signed between companies and company-dominated unions without workers’ consent, and requiring the exercise of free, personal and secret votes by workers. It also required the establishment of independent labor courts to rule on disputes, among other actions. It was considered crucial by many U.S. Democratic lawmakers and labor advocates in weighing whether to support USMCA.
Several of the filings are attributed to “CTM” unions, referring to a confederation of unions considered employer-dominated. CTM-sponsored unions have been flagged by some Democrats as anti-democratic.
A U.S. union representative with knowledge of Mexican labor issues called the Supreme Court activity “timely.”
“It’s certainly timely at this point with USMCA going into effect next week to remember that the issues with Mexico’s labor law reform, which everyone assumes is what will be in force, is still subject to significant challenges,” the source said.
The employer-dominated unions, the source continued, “are not being too shy about wanting to keep the old system in place where the accountability of the unions was to the employer not to their members.”
“Let’s remember nothing has actually changed on the ground in Mexico,” the source said, adding that while a year has passed since the labor reform legislation was approved, the country is only “just beginning” to take steps to uphold its USMCA commitments. Mexico last June outlined a roadmap <https://insidetrade.com/sites/insidetrade.com/files/documents/2019/jun/wto2019_0201a.pdf> showing how it planned to implement its labor law reforms through 2023.
The constitutional challenges brought by the Mexican unions have been flagged by labor experts <https://insidetrade.com/node/166754> and some Democratic lawmakers as priorities for the U.S. to focus on to ensure the reforms are sufficiently implemented.
The International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network this week filed an amicus brief <https://insidetrade.com/node/169076> with the Supreme Court, contending the petitioners’ claims were aimed at delaying the implementation of the labor reform efforts. ILAW, which includes over 400 members from more than 50 countries, calls itself a global network of “legal practitioners and academics and who represent workers and their representative organizations, including trade unions.”
“We argue that the reforms enacted by the government of Mexico (GOM) on May 2, 2019, are generally consistent with [International Labor Organization] conventions and therefore any and all amparos filed against these reforms on the basis of their alleged non-conformity with international law should be denied,” the brief states.
“The arguments put forward by these petitioners lack legal merit and appear instead aimed at delaying theimplementation of the reforms for as long as possible to allow the unions benefitting from protection contracts to consolidate and extend their control,” the brief continues. “There can be little doubt that the amendments adopted by the Government of Mexico, individually and as a whole, are consistent with international labor and human rights law, and are well-crafted for the specific purpose of ending the protection contract system -- which has frustrated the exercise of freedom of association and collective bargaining in Mexico for a century.”
The group calls the protection contract system a “central problem” of Mexico’s labor practices that has prevented workers from exercising their right to freedom of association and to bargain collectively for decades. Several House Ways & Means Committee Democrats, including trade subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), have pledged to make sure Mexico fully eradicates existing documents and ensure new ones are not signed.
“We therefore urge the Supreme Court of the Nation to reject the amparos, which reflect the last, desperate attempt of the beneficiaries of the old order to hang on to their ill-gotten gains,” ILAW asserts.
Jeffrey Vogt, Chair of the ILAW Network and Rule of Law Director with the Solidarity Center, said he hopes the June 23 brief “helps to inform the deliberation of the Supreme Court justices as they decide the merits of the lawsuits filed by those seeking to maintain a corrupt system that only served to undermine the rights and interests of Mexican workers.”
“As a result of recent reforms, Mexican workers now have a greater ability to exercise their fundamental labor rights -- including the right to freedom of association and to bargain collectively -- as required by international law,” he said in a June 24 press release.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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