The Workplace Standard on Psychosocial Risk

Since October 23, 2019, Mexican employers have had to comply with the official standard NOM-035-STPS-2018 on psychosocial risk at work. It defines workplace violence as acts of harassment or mistreatment that can harm a worker’s integrity or health. Mistreatment includes “insultos, burlas, humillaciones y/o ridiculizaciones” (insults, mockery, humiliation and/or ridicule).

One of the standard’s questionnaires asks workers about statements such as “Recibo críticas constantes a mi persona y/o trabajo” (I receive constant criticism of my person and/or my work).

Humiliating Punishment

On January 11, 2021, Mexico reformed its General Law on the Rights of Children and Adolescents and its Federal Civil Code to ban the corporal and humiliating punishment of children. Humiliating punishment is defined as any treatment that is “ofensivo, denigrante, desvalorizador, estigmatizante, ridiculizador y de menosprecio” (offensive, degrading, devaluing, stigmatizing, ridiculing and belittling).

Who Is Who in the Lies

On June 30, 2021, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s morning press conference added a weekly section called “Quién es quién en las mentiras de la semana” (Who is who in the lies of the week). Each Wednesday, Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis presented statements by journalists, commentators and social media users and labeled them false.

The next day, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the government to reconsider the section. The government replied that what it stigmatized was “the lie or the slander,” not journalists.

Lady Profeco

In late April 2013, according to press reports, Andrea Benítez did not get the table she wanted at Máximo Bistrot, a restaurant in Mexico City. Soon after, the reports said, inspectors from Profeco, the federal consumer protection agency, came to the restaurant. Its head was her father, Humberto Benítez Treviño. Profeco never formally closed the restaurant, but the owners kept it shut. The story spread on social media, and she became known as #LadyProfeco.

In mid-May 2013, by order of President Enrique Peña Nieto, her father was removed from his post.

Here the public exposure was aimed upward, at a powerful family, and it produced a result within weeks.

At Your Command

When a Mexican is called by name, or does not catch what was said, the polite answer is ¿Mande? The word comes from mandar, “to command,” and means roughly “at your command.” Its origin is unclear. One account links it to the colonial period, but no document supports this, and the word is used between equals.

Many Mexicans also call their mother mi jefa, “my boss,” and, with affection, jefecita.

The One Who Commands

El que manda, manda, y si se equivoca, vuelve a mandar. “The one who commands, commands, and if he makes a mistake, he commands again.” In a 2019 column in Excélsior, the journalist Félix Cortés Camarillo wrote that he learned the saying from a businessman, don Emilio.

The Supreme Chief of the Revolution

After President-elect Álvaro Obregón was assassinated on July 17, 1928, former president Plutarco Elías Calles began to be called el Jefe Máximo de la Revolución, “the Supreme Chief of the Revolution.” Others held the presidency. From 1928 to 1934, however, no political authority in Mexico was more important than Calles.

The period is known as the Maximato, after his title. President Lázaro Cárdenas ended it on the night of April 9, 1936.

The Big Finger

Under the PRI, the outgoing president chose the party’s candidate for his succession. The practice is called el dedazo, from dedo, “finger.” The dictionary of the Spanish Academy defines it, in its Mexican sense, as the designation of a candidate by the executive “without the usual formalities.” The writer Jorge Castañeda has argued that every PRI president used it.

Until the name was announced, the chosen man was el tapado, “the covered one.” For months, names of possible successors went around. In the end, the president decided.

The Day of the President

In the years of PRI rule, the president’s annual report to Congress was known as el Día del Presidente, “the Day of the President.” It came with parades, luxury cars and national broadcasts that lasted for hours. The president arrived at Congress among ovations.

The speech was judged by counting how many times applause interrupted it. A 2008 reform ended the president’s obligation to attend.

I Ordered It

On October 17, 2019, an operation in Culiacán, Sinaloa, to arrest Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, failed, and he was released. On June 19, 2020, President López Obrador said at his morning press conference: “Yo ordené que se detuviera ese operativo y que se dejara en libertad a este presunto delincuente” (I ordered that the operation be stopped and that this alleged criminal be set free).

In October 2022, he repeated that he gave the instruction “to avoid a massacre” and said that his conscience was clear.

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