Mexican Legislature Passes Labor Reforms; Mexico's President Asks Congress to Ratify USMCA

Reforms of Mexico's labor laws passed its Senate overwhelmingly April 29, and that vote was hailed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "These reforms will greatly improve Mexico's system of labor justice and are exactly what labor leaders in the United States and Mexico have sought for decades. As we move forward with the ratification of USMCA, the Trump Administration will work closely with members of the United States Congress and the Mexican government to ensure these reforms are implemented and enforced," his office said in a statement the evening of April 29.

The bill now heads to Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for his signature. He said April 30 that before this vote, "there was no free and secret vote of the workers to elect their representatives and now they are going to decide freely -- it is a great advance for the benefit of the workers of Mexico."

He also said that the reform has another important consequence -- it shows that Mexico is complying with the agreements it made with the United States as part of the new NAFTA. He called on Congress "to finish approving the free trade agreement."

But in the House of Representatives, the historic labor vote in Mexico -- which the International Trade Commission estimated could increase Mexican wages by 17.2 percent in just six years -- did not rouse enthusiasm from Democrats.

California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar said of the Mexican labor vote: "It's definitely a step in the right direction, and we'll continue to have discussions about what this means." When asked by International Trade Today if the vote provides momentum for a ratification vote in 2019, he said, "There's a lot of space to get to from here to there." He said they need to see what the enforcement mechanisms will look like.

California's Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who voted for NAFTA, said, "I haven't closely followed the whole issue of NAFTA, but from my perspective, in the limited review that I've had, any agreements that are made in terms of labor issues and conditions, better wages, dealing with any of the negative impacts from an environmental perspective, any of that has to be part of the agreement, not side agreements or anything along those lines, because then they don't happen. We saw that happened with NAFTA. We had all these promises of side agreements, of things they were going to do, and as soon as NAFTA passed, that was all forgotten, and nothing ever got done." She added: "And it has to be enforceable."