Almost three years after the reform to the Federal Labor Lawthe federal government formed a working group that is preparing a proposal that seeks to strengthen the labor inspection, and it will soon be presented to the legislature, “there cannot be a conciliation without having labor certainty and an authentic inspection.”
This was expressed by Alfonzo Bouzas, coordinator of the Labor Observatory, who explained that in recent weeks an intense analysis has been carried out regarding the way in which the labor inspectionwhere all the government instances walk in the same line so that their efforts are not divided.
“Clearly there can be no conciliation, without having labor certainty; that gives a real inspection. The proposal contemplates that there be very well trained inspectors, the idea is integral changes to the inspection”.
The Mexican labor inspection design is far from being effective and maintains a wide gap between labor regulations and the reality of the labor Relations, so it requires a profound reform; Germán Reyes, a labor lawyer, who conducted an investigation on the subject, said in an interview.
The deficiencies that have been detected in the institutional design are: technical capacity, coverage of 2% to 3% at the federal level, limited human and material resources and the capacity of labor inspectors, and low pay.
In 2019 the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) had 421 labor inspectors, by 2020 they increased to 447 inspectors, carrying out 29,177 inspections in work centers.
Bouzas highlighted that the proposal that is being worked on aims to “end with the ignorant charrito inspector, who only wants to see what he grabs and that it is a gift; put an end to the inspection carried out by the STPS, the IMSS, the SHCP, since they are few and diversified. The project being worked on is for a comprehensive inspection.
In such a way, that “the inspector who attends is a professional, but a specialist in the sector and with the ability to see all aspects, in such a way that his work is satisfactory and has results; for the inspection sector to grow qualitatively and quantitatively. Having the premise that there cannot be good badly paid inspectors”.
More money from the American embassy
On the other hand, the United States Department of Labor issued a bidding so that, through financed technical cooperation, the Mexican inspection system can be strengthened.
For this, it will allocate 12 million dollars, “to prepare the labor inspectors federal and state laws and improve enforcement of the country’s landmark 2019 labor law reform in five states, with a focus on northern states.”
The financing opportunity, according to the United States Department of Labor, is aligned with the USMCA, and will support a project in the sectors that is a priority. In this sense, it seeks to improve the application of labor legislation by federal and state labor inspectors; improve the administration of labor inspections; and improve inspector engagement with supply chain actors regarding statutory labor requirements that were passed in 2019.
