Bill to shorten Mexico work week delayed until 2024

FILE PHOTO: A worker cleans a BMW car part during a media tour at the plant of German automaker BMW in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, February 3, 2023. REUTERS/Toya Sarno Jordan/File Photo

MEXICO CITY — A bill to cut the working day in Mexico by eight hours to 40 hours a week is unlikely to be approved this year, pushing debate on it back into early 2024 when Congress reconvenes, five lawmaking sources involved in discussions told Reuters.

The constitutional overhaul has met resistance from business and the center-right opposition National Action Party, and this week President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signalled it might not pass this month by urging Congress to further analyze it.

“Let’s have more time and invite everyone in and review what’s happening in other countries,” he said when asked about the bill. “With more listening and setting out of reasons.”

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Congress ends its current session on Dec. 13 and resumes on Feb. 1. Juan Robledo, a lawmaker who heads one of the lower house committees that must review the legislation, told Reuters there was no longer time to pass the bill in 2023.

Robledo belongs to Lopez Obrador’s ruling leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), which lacks the two-thirds majority in Congress needed to make constitutional changes.

Presented last year, the bill passed one lower house committee in April, but business-led concerns led to the creation of forums to broaden discussion of its implications.

Pledging to improve workers’ rights, Lopez Obrador has ushered in the biggest increases in the minimum wage in decades, including rises of 20% for both 2024 and 2023. The gap between Mexico and the neighboring United States remains huge, however.

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Employers urged Congress to implement the changes gradually to avoid hurting industries where the labor market is tight. They also argued the legislation could cause financial difficulty for some small and medium-sized businesses.

Esperanza Ortega, president of business association Canacintra, this week estimated the reduction of the working week would push up costs by between 10% and 20%.

“This will impact the final consumer,” she said, noting it was important to raise productivity if working hours drop.

Lorenzo Roel, head of the labor commission at Mexico’s powerful CCE business lobby, said the legislation could require companies to hire 2.6 million workers at reduced hours, costing them an additional $20 billion.

Inside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of 38 industrialized nations, Mexico has the worst balance between personal life and work.

At some 2,226 hours annually – about 500 hours more than the OECD average – Mexico has the longest working hours, the lowest labor productivity and lowest salaries in the group.