Wednesday, January 20, 2021
U.S. manufacturers that maintain operations or supply chains in Mexico will continue to face challenges as Mexico accelerates implementation of its new labor law and the United States increases pressure on Mexico for faster labor reforms through unprecedented enforcement tools available under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Manufacturers are the principal focus of this new initiative.
Mexico Labor Law Reforms
Mexico
enacted sweeping labor law reforms on May 1, 2019, that overhauled the country’s labor laws to encourage meaningful unionization similar to what the United States has maintained for nearly 80 years. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador campaigned for labor law reform, and the reforms are an expressed (and critical) term in the USMCA. These reforms are designed to eliminate Mexican employers’ reliance on “protection contracts,” which are agreements between an employer and employer-sponsored union that provides favorable terms to employers with limited or no accountability to workers.