Note published on May 3 in Reforma, in the Negocios [Business] Section by Verónica Gascón.
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The automotive and auto parts, retail and mass consumption of food and beverage sectors are the ones with the highest number of collective bargaining agreements that did not pass the test of legitimation, according to an analysis conducted by the De la Vega & Martínez Rojas Firm.
Up until April of 2023, 244 collective bargaining agreements were terminated as the result of a process of negative voting by the workers.
In the automotive and maquila sectors, the terminations of collective bargaining agreements that have failed to be legitimized have been a consequence of the pressure by independent unions, stated Blanya Correal, advisor of the De la Vega & Martínez Rojas Law Firm.
“What happened in the automotive, auto parts and maquila sectors, what we are seeing, is a phenomenon of the impact of independent unions. Cases like General Motors, or everything that we have seen in the maquila industry in the North, Matamoros, or Tamaulipas, have generated a trend in which workers are beginning to understand the power of their vote,” she said.
On the other hand, this result is obtained in retail and in some mass consumption companies because of their short tradition with unions, as this is a sector dominated by white unions.
She said that retail is the second sector with the most failed collective bargaining agreement legitimations.
On the other hand, in the metal and raw materials sector, on one hand, and the Hotel sector on the other hand, workers are clearly tired of their unions and there is a need for renewing their collective representation, according with the analysis.
“The third trend is found in sectors such as the hotel industry, with failed legitimations, where we observed that the workers are tired of the unionism that is traditionally associated to them. What we can see is that workers have had enough of their representatives and a clear need for change,” Correal warned.
The specialist said that the reason for the small number of failed legitimations (244 compared to over 17,000 that were legitimated) is because the unions that went through the agreement validation process did so because they were certain that they would pass this test.
“The ones that went ahead with the legitimation were reasonably certain that they would be successful; those who did not, knew that the workers were not ready to enter into the scheme of collective representation,” she pointed out.
