Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2014, published 104th ILC session (2015)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Mexico (Ratification: 1950)

Article 2 of the Convention. Registration of trade unions. The Committee notes that the new section 364bis of the Federal Labour Act sets out that the registration of trade unions “shall comply with the principles of legality, transparency, certainty, equity, immediacy and impartiality and shall respect freedom, independence, equality and democracy relating to trade unions”. In this regard, the Committee notes that in its observations received on 1 September 2014, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) stated that adequate legal remedies were not available in the event that the report of the inspectors under the Secretariat of Labour and Social Welfare resulted in the non-registration of the trade union in the registration of associations. The Committee requests the Government to provide its comments on these observations.

Article 3. Right of workers’ organizations to organize their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes. The Committee recalls that it has been requesting the Government for many years to amend various aspects of the legislation that recognizes the right to strike of state employees:

• (i) section 121 of the Credit Institutions Act provides that the “National Banking Commission shall ensure that during the strike as many offices as are indispensable shall remain open and as many workers as are strictly necessary to perform the functions shall continue to work”. In this respect, the Committee observed that the National Banking Commission is not tripartite. The Committee recalls that workers’ organizations should be able to take part, should they so wish, in determining the minimum service to be maintained in the event of a strike, along with employers and the public authorities; and
• (ii) section 99(II) of the Federal Act on State Employees lays down the requirement that to call a strike two-thirds of the workers in the public body concerned must be in favour. The Committee recalls in this respect that, with regard to workers who do not exercise authority in the name of the State, the ballot method, the quorum and the majority required should not be such that exercise of the right to strike becomes very difficult, or even impossible in practice.

The Committee once again requests the Government to take the necessary measures to revise the above legislative provisions accordingly and to provide information on any developments in this regard.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2015.]