PRI member Cristina Ruiz also criticized the fact that there are not two days of rest a week, maintaining that this constitutional modification measures rest in hours and not days.
He commented that working six days is not a rest, because it means six transfers, six trucks, six meals and six days away from home.
“This is not the 40-hour reform, it is the fatigue reform,” he said.
PAN member Marko Cortés said that this reform is “half-way justice,” because it only benefits formally hired workers. He said that if this modification is poorly executed, it can generate greater informality.
He also criticized that the 40 working hours are until 2030 and are not applied this year, which is why he commented that this may be due to the government making an agreement with the business sector.
“This reform does not contemplate fiscal stimuli for micro and medium-sized companies, because of course there will be costs and there will be those who will have to pay those extra hours and hire more personnel to comply with this,” he said.
Opposition senators presented nine reservations, among them was establishing two days of rest per week, but none passed.
The Chamber of Deputies still needs to approve this reform and if it does, Mexico will become the third country in Latin America to establish a 40-hour work week.
This is done after Ecuador, a pioneer country in promoting this change in the region in 1997, and Chile, which began a gradual reduction process in 2024 that is expected to conclude in 2028.
According to a report from the International Labor Organization (ILO), workers in the world work 43.9 hours per week on average, and in Mexico that time is 45.2 hours.
