In order to participate in this system, a union must have a legal registration (registro), have an officially recognized right to negotiate collective agreements (titularidad) and must regularly re-register its officials and be accepted by the state (toma de nota). This system can be used to inhibit independent unions that are not related to the community brand or other federations that have established relations with the state, as the three members of those councils often have selfish reasons for refusing or delaying the registration of competing unions. Employers can also avoid the formation of trade unions by entering into “protection contracts” with “sindicatos blancos” or “white unions”, often even before a facility is built. Such contracts often give the union a closed store that allows the union to ask the employer to dismiss a worker who is not a good one in the union; this power can in turn be used to identify workers who are trying to organise independent unions for dismissal. Some observers, including the Unién Nacional de Trabajadores (www.unt.org.mx) or UNT, estimate that between ninety and ninety per cent of all collective agreements in Mexico fall into this category. New voting procedures will eliminate safeguard agreements. The ratification of a CBA or a new union requires the approval of at least 30 per cent of workers participating in an election. The vote must be free and secret. All existing CBAs must be ratified or “legitimized” by May 1, 2023. “To legitimize a CBA, the union must demonstrate that a majority of workers identified by the CBA are aware of and approve the terms of the CBA,” Pasquel said. While most workers do not support the CBA, “it is made redundant, except that benefits and working conditions within the CBA that exceed the statutory minimums remain in effect.” All CBAs that have not been legitimized until that date will be automatically terminated. The legislative reform, advocated by President Andrés Manuel Lépez Obrador and his progressive Morena party, aims to eliminate an imbalance in bargaining power between companies and employees that has existed for 50 years. On 31 July 2019, the Mexican Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs or the Secretala del Trabajo y Previsién Social (STPS) published the protocol for legitimizing the collective agreements currently in force (CBAs) in the Official Journal of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federacion) (DOF).
This protocol is applicable now until the Federal Centre for Conciliation and Registration begins work. The protocol was published in accordance with Mexico`s labour law reform, which came into force on 1 May 2019.
