Constitutional amendment of labor justice without the adjustments to the secondary laws

According to the constitutional amendment in the area of labor justice of February 24, 2017, on February 26 the legislative amendments should be done, both federally and in each of the States of the Federation, to implement said amendments, however, to date there are none. According to the constitutional amendment, the deadline to make all the legislative amendments to make it effective was February 25, 2018, which ordered, among other issues, the creation of labor courts dependent on the judiciary.

Unfortunately, labor law is once again run over by politics in the country, being this a constitutional amendment so far-reaching, however, little attention has been paid by the different factors of power in Mexico. The draft initiative to amend the Federal Labor Law, for example, is still pending discussion and approval in the Senate, in addition to no discussion, let alone approval, on other necessary laws such as the Organic Law of the Judicial Power of the Federation.

However, it is important to bear in mind that the failure to comply with the period set by the constitutional transitory article to implement the amendment does not entail legal consequences, it is a legal loophole where, on the one hand, there will be no liability whatsoever for failing to comply with the provisions of same and, on the other hand, will not lose the validity of what has already been ordered in the constitution, which also means that implementation in the secondary laws can be done at any time even if the term granted has by the Constitution expired, without penalty of nullity. Therefore, today we have a constitutional amendment ordering the creation of Labor Courts, creating a decentralized federal agency responsible for the registration of all collective bargaining agreements and trade unions, as well as the conciliation before such body prior to initiating any labor lawsuit and to request the union to prove its representativeness of the majority of workers to initiate a collective labor procedure. This amendment lacks secondary laws that implement so, however, we insist, this does not mean that what the constitution orders is no longer the current norm, being an absolute legal inconsistency that we are facing.

Now, we consider that it is an amendment that should be discussed with great care and that what is important is not the time in which it is implemented, but the quality and effectiveness of its implementation, however, the lack of interest and sensitivity to this amendment’s relevance is noted, as it has not even begun to be discussed in the initial chamber, i.e., the chamber of senators, and that, still, little concern was given about the constitutional period that was provided for its implementation.

In Diez de Bonilla, Kuri y Asociados, S.C. we join the principles that the constitutional reform enshrines and, therefore, the need to adapt the laws, prevailing over the essence to achieve the end of same, rather than to comply it in a time that leads to hinder its end.