Article 183 of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law draws a line inside the workforce. “Los trabajadores de confianza no podrán formar parte de los sindicatos de los demás trabajadores” (Employees of trust may not belong to the unions of the other workers). Nor are they counted “en los recuentos que se efectúen para determinar la mayoría en los casos de huelga” (in the counts held to decide the majority in a strike).
Trust and Social Distance
In 1973, the anthropologist Larissa Adler de Lomnitz published a study of survival in a shantytown of Mexico City, in the El Colegio de México journal Demografía y Economía. She wrote that confianza “depende de factores tanto culturales (distancia social) como físicos (cercanía de residencia)” (depends on both cultural factors, social distance, and physical ones, nearness of residence).
Her conclusion: “la confianza es variable y flexible mientras que la distancia social es formal e invariable” (trust is variable and flexible, while social distance is formal and fixed). A cuate, a close friend, “podrá ser de mayor confianza que un pariente que vive muy lejos” (may be trusted more than a relative who lives far away).
Ninety Percent Honesty
On November 28, 2019, at his morning press conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador defended his choice of Ángel Carrizales to head the agency ASEA. Carrizales had been criticized for his lack of experience. The president answered: “Si hablamos en términos cuantitativos, 90 por ciento honestidad, 10 por ciento experiencia” (If we speak in numbers, 90 percent honesty, 10 percent experience). He added that Carrizales “tiene toda nuestra confianza” (has all our trust).
In February 2026, Expansión reported the formula in terms of loyalty. In his book Ni venganza ni perdón, Julio Scherer Ibarra, the former legal counsel to the presidency, describes it as “colaboradores con 90% de lealtad y 10% de capacidad” (staff with 90 percent loyalty and 10 percent ability).
The Room Next Door
In an interview in the magazine Este País of May 1991, Jaime Serra Puche described how he would bring the representatives of an industry, starting with textiles, into a trade negotiation. “[L]os voy a tener en un cuarto al lado” (I will have them in a room next door), he said. “Ellos me van a ayudar a negociar” (They will help me negotiate).
When the North American agreement was renegotiated in 2017, business advisers again worked beside the official team. The group became known as the Cuarto de Junto, “the room next door.” According to Vanguardia, it was coordinated by Moisés Kalach.
Who Inspires Trust
INEGI carried out its survey ENCIG 2023 from late October to mid-December 2023. “87.4 % dijo que sus familiares eran quienes mayor confianza le inspiraban” (87.4 percent said that their relatives were the ones who inspired the most trust in them).
The statistics institute of Jalisco published the results for that state by degree of trust. Mucha confianza, a lot of trust, went to family from 50.2 percent of respondents, to coworkers from 33.6 percent and to neighbors from 21.4 percent.
The Family at the Top
In 2024, CIFEM, the family business center of the IPADE business school, published a report with BBVA on Mexican family firms. It found that “prácticamente el 97% de los líderes son miembros de la familia” (practically 97 percent of the leaders are members of the family). The report adds: “Es complicado para un miembro «no familiar» ser líder en una empresa familiar” (It is difficult for a “non-family” member to lead a family firm).
The report is based on 476 respondents. It says that its findings fit best the firms whose profile is found mainly among graduates of IPADE programs, and that they do not represent all Mexican family firms.
Posts of Trust in Government
Article 5 of Mexico’s law for federal government employees lists the posts that are de confianza. The list begins with “los que integran la planta de la Presidencia de la República” (those on the staff of the Presidency of the Republic). It includes “los Secretarios particulares de: Secretario, Sub-Secretario, Oficial Mayor y Director General” (the private secretaries of a minister, a deputy minister, a chief administrative officer and a director general).
It also includes the “manejo de fondos o valores” (handling of funds or valuables), when the post carries the legal power to dispose of them.
The Corregidora’s Warning
On September 13, 1810, the conspiracy of Querétaro was betrayed. Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, the wife of the corregidor Miguel Domínguez, was locked in her room. She sent her warning with “el alcaide Ignacio Pérez” (the jailer Ignacio Pérez). He went to San Miguel and, when he did not find Ignacio Allende, “puso el aviso en manos de Hidalgo” (put the warning in Hidalgo’s hands), according to Excélsior. Hidalgo began the uprising early on September 16.
Accounts differ on how she reached Pérez. One says that she struck the floor with her shoe. Another says that she knocked on the wall.
Networks of Exchange
In 1975, the anthropologist Larissa Adler de Lomnitz described the Cerrada del Cóndor, a shantytown in Mexico City, in the journal Demografía y Economía. Of about 180 households, “solamente diez unidades residenciales estaban desligadas de sus vecinos” (only ten households were cut off from their neighbors). The others formed 45 networks of reciprocal exchange, averaging four or five families.
“Las redes están formadas en su mayoría por parientes cercanos, pero también incluyen a vecinos no emparentados” (The networks are formed mostly of close relatives, but they also include unrelated neighbors). When a man loses his work, “su familia recibe alojamiento y es mantenida mientras se le encuentra empleo” (his family receives lodging and is supported while a job is found for him).
The Night of Tlatelolco
On October 3, 1968, the day after the massacre in Tlatelolco, the headlines of the capital’s main newspapers played down the event or blamed the students. El Sol de México ran the headline “Manos Extrañas se Empeñan en Desprestigiar a México” (Foreign Hands Strive to Discredit Mexico). Excélsior wrote: “Recio Combate al Dispersar el Ejército un mitin de Huelguistas” (Fierce Fighting as the Army Breaks Up a Strikers’ Meeting).
In 1971, Elena Poniatowska published La noche de Tlatelolco, with the subtitle Testimonios de historia oral (Testimonies of oral history). It collects the accounts of students, workers and many others. Poniatowska later recalled that her own newspaper had turned her reporting down: “¡En Novedades rechazaron todo!” (At Novedades they rejected everything!)