Mexico, Processes, Parallel Tracks

Contracts Put to a Vote

The labor reform of May 1, 2019 required every existing collective contract in Mexico to be legitimado, legitimated. Labor Secretary Luisa María Alcalde described the procedure as making sure that workers “conocen el contenido de sus CCT” (know the content of their collective contracts) and approve it by personal, free, direct and secret vote. The deadline was May 1, 2023.

Six weeks before the deadline, Expansión reported that only 13,659 contracts had been legitimated, out of an estimated 139,000. In April 2024, according to El Imparcial, the labor official Alejandro Arregui Ibarra said that only between 17,000 and 20,000 contracts had been legitimated nationwide. More than 120,000 were left outside the process.

The Real Employer

In 2021, Mexico reformed its labor law so that “queda prohibida la subcontratación de personal” (the subcontracting of personnel is prohibited). The reform took effect on September 1, 2021, after an extension.

Five days later, the social security institute IMSS reported that 2,745,000 workers “pasaron de los esquemas de subcontratación al patrón real” (moved from subcontracting schemes to the real employer). The salary on which their social security contributions were based rose from 475.8 to 532.7 pesos.

Coordinators, Not Candidates

In 2023, six politicians of Morena toured Mexico, among them Claudia Sheinbaum, Marcelo Ebrard and Adán Augusto López. They were competing to lead “la Coordinación Nacional de los Comités de Defensa de la Cuarta Transformación 2024-2030” (the national coordination of the committees for the defense of the Fourth Transformation 2024-2030). The press called them corcholatas, bottle caps.

The complaints commission of the electoral institute INE set rules for the tours. The aspirants could not call for votes for or against any person or political force. Their activities could not seek support for a nomination as precandidates, and their propaganda had to identify the internal selection process. On July 11, 2023, the Superior Chamber of the electoral tribunal confirmed these rules by a majority of four votes. (Video in Spanish.)

Land That Could Not Be Sold

Until 1992, Mexico’s ejido land was “inalienables, intransferibles e inembargables” (inalienable, untransferable and unseizable). A 2014 article in the journal Territorios describes how, on the edges of the cities, this land was nevertheless bought by low-income settlers. The sales had no legal validity. Much of the cities’ growth onto ejido land took place through an informal market.

The government’s statement of reasons for the constitutional reform of 1991 acknowledged the “venta de tierras ejidales que se llevan a cabo al margen de la ley” (sales of ejido land carried out outside the law), and the renting of plots.

The Exception That Became the Rule

In 2019, according to the think tank IMCO, almost one of every two pesos spent by Mexico’s federal government went through direct awards and restricted invitations. Expansión wrote that these exception procedures “se mantienen como la regla de contratación del gobierno federal” (remain the procurement rule of the federal government).

In 2023, the civic group Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad counted contracts rather than pesos. According to Diario de Yucatán, it found that 80 percent of federal government contracts that year were awarded directly.

Parallel Legality

In November 2020, Pedro Sánchez Rodríguez published a column in La Razón titled “Legalidades paralelas” (Parallel legalities). He wrote that Mexico “es un país de leyes y códigos que, por lo regular, no se cumplen” (is a country of laws and codes that, as a rule, are not complied with). What legal purists would call corruption and impunity, he argued, is a parallel legality.

Obeyed and Not Complied With

Spanish colonial law gave officials a way to stop a royal order for a time. A royal declaration of 1509 says such orders “primero deben ser obedecidas y no cumplidas, y después consultadas” (must first be obeyed and not complied with, and then consulted on). The Recopilación of 1567 uses a similar formula: “que la tal carta sea obedecida y no cumplida.”

Between 1571 and 1574, the authorities of Mexico City, doctors included, applied the formula obedézcase pero no se cumpla, “let it be obeyed but not carried out,” in a dispute over medical practice. A study of the case sums it up: “obedecieron pero no cumplieron” (they obeyed but did not comply).