In Europe there is not a country where the working day is greater than 40 hours and productivity is not affected, said Plácido Morales, head of the Federal Attorney for Labor Defense (Profedet)
“The reduction of the working day is on its way and it is essential that it be from a broad dialogue between workers and employers,” he said.
For the official, the 2019 labor reform marked a watershed in Mexico and this path will not stop as has happened in other countries.
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Since 2022, the Congress of the Union discusses to take an important step towards the modernization of working conditions with the proposal to reduce the maximum working day from the current 48 hours, one of the highest in the world, up to 40 hours a week.
That change is a slope inherited by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the Government of Claudia Sheinbaum.
This is a labor conquest that France, perhaps the country that has advanced the most in this labor innovation, completed almost a century ago, in 1936, reducing the maximum working day from 48 to 40 hours.
Then, in 2002, he reduced it to 35 hours and currently, the public debate travels between the onslaught to increase it from the employers and a proposal by France Insumisa to reduce it to 32 hours per week.
The Federal Attorney for the Defense of Labor assured that in the reform to reduce the working day, the opinion of both parties must be taken into account.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) is ready to listen to both parties, “a measure is not taken without properly attended,” he said.
Plácido Morales said that with the new labor model the working people of Mexico have more agile access to justice administration systems, in addition to the fact that freedom of association that is a historical demand, because now, he said, the working base can choose through the direct and secret free vote to their union leaders.
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The official participated in the event “2025: year of risks and opportunities in labor matters”, where he addressed key issues for labor law in Mexico and Latin America.
Specialists from the workplace, business and academic, presented detailed analysis of the most important challenges and opportunities for the sector in the coming years.
This event also had the participation of work experts such as Carlos Elizondo Mayer Serra, professor of the Technological of Monterrey, who talked about the most relevant changes and implications of the TMEC in the work context.
Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel, academic and independent counselor, shared her analysis of the effects of judicial reform on labor justice. While specialists Minnie Fu and Pedro Torres Díaz discussed the possible effects of Donald Trump’s re -election, addressing changes in labor policy, foreign trade and bilateral relations with Mexico.
The advances and challenges in terms of labor equity were also analyzed, with the participation of lawyers Carla Martínez Santiestevan, Jessica Rojas Muñoz, Areli Ramírez Olmedo, Irma García Morales and Cristina Sánchez Vebber.
Experts in Labor Reforms, Héctor Mauricio de la Cruz Castañeda, José María Galindo Fugüan, José Luis López Ramírez and Blanca Estela Valdés Sánchez discussed the most relevant legislative modifications that will mark the future of labor law in Mexico.
To end this event Pedro Miguel Hazes Barba, general secretary of the CATEM and federal deputy, accompanied by Oscar de la Vega Gómez and Ricardo Martínez Rojas analyzed the challenges and opportunities of trade unionism in a constant work context.
