Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2018, published 108th ILC session (2019)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Mexico (Ratification: 1950)

Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. Registration of trade unions and accreditation of elected trade union representatives. In its previous requests, the Committee noted: (i) the allegations of the refusal of applications for trade union registration, and various obstacles to the establishment and recognition of independent trade unions, contained in the observations of IndustriALL Global Union (IndustriALL); and (ii) the observations of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and IndustriALL alleging that the accreditation procedure (toma de nota), whereby elected trade union leaders are required, in order to take office, to obtain a certificate from the labour authorities attesting that the elections were held in accordance with the trade union constitution, continues to give rise to many abuses undermining the freedom of workers to elect their representatives, even though the Supreme Court of Justice has restricted the scope of this procedure through its case law.

With regard to the allegations of the refusal of registration, the Committee notes the Government’s indications, in response to IndustriALL’s observations from previous years, that: (i) some of the allegations refer to issues which have already received the Government’s response or have been resolved, including cases that have already been examined by the Committee on Freedom of Association; (ii) in relation to the most recent allegations of the refusal to register independent trade unions in several factories in the export processing (maquila) industry in Ciudad Juárez, the Government will follow up on the situations and provide additional information; and (iii) in general, of the 739 applications for trade union registration presented since 2012, registration has been granted in 92.82 per cent of cases and the average period to complete the trade union registration process is less than four calendar days. On the other hand, the Committee notes that the ITUC and the National Union of Workers (UNT) allege the continued refusal of applications for trade union registration, referring in particular to the case of a trade union in the oil industry, for which the application has been pending since 2014.

Regarding the allegations of abuse in the accreditation procedure for elected trade union officials, the Committee notes the Government’s indication that, of the 5,640 applications received to update the composition of executive committees, 98.61 per cent were approved.

While taking due note of the detailed statistical information provided on the procedures of registration and accreditation of elected representatives, the Committee requests the Government to provide its comments on the most recent allegations of the refusal of applications for registration and on the reported follow-up that it is conducting regarding some of the previous allegations.

Article 3. Right of workers’ organizations to organize their activities and to formulate their programmes. The Committee recalls that for many years it has been requesting the Government to take the necessary measures to amend various aspects of the legislation on the right to strike of state employees, and particularly: (i) section 99(II) of the Federal Act on State Employees (LFTSE), which establishes the requirement of two-thirds of the workers in the public body concerned to call a strike; (ii) the legislation that restricts the right to strike of certain state employees (including workers in the banking sector and those in many decentralized public bodies, such as the National Lottery and the Housing Institute) only to situations involving a general and systematic violation of their rights (section 94, Title 4, of the LFTSE, and section 5 of the Act issuing regulations under article 123B(XIIIbis) of the Constitution); and (iii) several laws and regulations related to public services (the Railway Regulations Act, the National Vehicle Registration Act, the General Channels of Communication Act and the internal regulations of the Ministry of Communications and Transport), which provide for the possibility of requisitioning staff in the event that the national economy is affected. The Committee notes the Government’s indication with regard to these issues that, on 26 July 2017, several members of parliament presented an initiative proposing the reform of several provisions of the LFTSE in order that the workers concerned might exercise the right to strike and that this initiative is pending a decision. Hoping to be able to note progress in relation to the various amendments to the LFTSE referred to above, the Committee requests the Government to provide information on any developments in this respect.