Note published on November 22 in El Economista, Empresas [Companies] Section by María del Pilar Martínez.
According to the report by the Department of Labor and Social Welfare. 6,811 collective bargaining agreement revisions have been reported so far this year; 2.4 million workers have benefited from these revisions, 1.6 million of which are at the federal level and 871,961 are at the local level.
Up until the month of September, contractual revisions, salary, and benefits, at the federal and at the local levels, experienced a decrease of 17% in comparison to the same period (January-September) of 2022 according to the report by the Department of Labor and Social Welfare.
Although the reduction in contractual revisions may be due to the fact that thousands of collective bargaining agreements were terminated on May of this year, “it is also true that negotiations are increasingly more complex, particularly because the increase to the minimum wages every year increases the pressure of union demands”, said Blanya Correal, International consultant Associated with De la Vega & Martínez Rojas.
The data provided by the STPS indicates that still on 2021, 4 times more collective bargaining agreement revisions were conducted both at the federal and at the local levels, totaling 29,865 revisions that benefited 2.1 million workers.
Meanwhile, this year, 6,811 collective bargaining agreement revisions have been reported, benefiting 2.4 million workers, 1.6 million of which are at the federal level and 871,961 are at the local level.
It is worth noting that the average nominal salary increase negotiated in 2022 was of 7.1% while, so far in 2023, an average of 8.5%has been reached in the first 9 months of the year; this, however, has not pleased union organizations, given that the actual increase is of 2.55%, while it did not even reach 1 per cent last year.
In this regard, representative Tereso Medina, who is also deputy secretary general of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) informed that this union federation will not negotiate any collective bargaining agreement that does not include a 20% salary increase for the workers.
“What I have been informed of so far is that, from now on, no collective bargaining agreement that does not include increases of 20% will be signed in the CTM, regardless of what the National Commission on Minimum Wages decides, because we have to have a decent salary, decent work and be treated decently, accordingly to the Human and Labor rights of workers in Mexico”, he maintained.
Medina Ramírez added that “from this point forward, the CTM will fight for improving workers’ wages and not the minimum wages, no. What the workers want, and demand, are decent salaries, not minimum wages, and talking of decent salaries is talking about the increases getting ever closer to a process of recovery of their purchasing power.”
He acknowledged that salaries have improved under the current administration, but “for Mexico and the President to do well, we need the workers to do well, and if the workers do well, we all do well.”
