Mexico: President creates new public administrative body to manage conciliation processes

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico has issued the Organic Law of the Federal Conciliation and Registration Centre (Ley Organica del Centro Federal de Conciliacion y Registro Laboral). On 6 January 2020, the Law was published in the Official Gazette, which established the internal organisation of the Conciliation and Registration Centre (hereinafter “Center”). The Centre will function as a decentralised body of the public administration and its main objective is to conduct the conciliation process, which will have to be depleted by the employees and employers, either in collective or individual employment matters. Some of the main functions of the Centre will be:

• Conciliatory function for individual matters.
• Conciliatory function for collective matters.
• Include the registry of all collective bargaining agreements.
• Establish capacitation plans.
• Assist unions and employees in the election process of their union leaders.
• Call and organise counts.
• Issue non-reconciliation records.
• Issue representativity records.
• Verify the majority of the employees’ support for the collective bargaining agreements.

It is important to note that the authorities who currently carry out the functions of conciliation and registration, will remain in office until the Centre begins its registration functions. The files regarding the legitimisation of existing CBA’s filed before the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare will be transferred to the Centre, which will then be able to determine whether the termination of a particular collective bargaining agreement is in compliance with the dispositions foreseen in the Federal Labour Law.