Mexico Ratifies ILO Convention 98

On Thursday, September 20, the plenary session of the Senate of the Republic approved, through a nominal voting, Convention 98 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on the application of the principles of the right to organize and collective bargaining and referred to the Executive Power for its promulgation and publication.

Unanimously and 69 years after it was adopted by the ILO, the international agreement establishing the rights of workers to unionize and not be subject to any kind of discrimination was ratified in Mexico, as well as the prohibition on the employer or the government may have interference in their organization.

Everything indicates the issue was the subject of the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement under the proposal of the United States and Canada.

Among its featured aspects are:

 Article 1.

 Workers must enjoy adequate protection against any act of discrimination aimed at undermining freedom of association in relation to their employment.

1. This protection must be exercised especially against any act that has as its object:
2. Securing the employment of a worker on condition that he or she does not join a union or that he or she ceases to be a member of a union;
3. Dismiss or injure a worker in any other way because of union membership or participation in union activities outside of work hours or, with the consent of the employer, during work hours.

Article 2.

1. Workers’ and employers’ organizations must enjoy adequate protection against any act of interference from one another, either directly or through their agents or members, in its constitution, operation or administration.
2. Acts of interference, within the meaning of this article, are considered, mainly, measures that tend to encourage the constitution of organizations of workers dominated by an employer or an employer’s organization, or to sustain economically, or in another way, workers’ organizations, in order to place these organizations under the control of an employer or an employers’ organization.

Article 3.

Agencies appropriate to national conditions should be created, when necessary, to guarantee respect for the right to organize defined in the preceding articles.

Article 4.

Appropriate measures shall be taken to national conditions, where necessary, to promote and encourage between employers and employers’ organizations, on the one hand, and workers’ organizations, on the other, the full development and use of voluntary negotiation procedures, in order to regulate, by means of collective agreements, the conditions of employment.

Article 5.

1. The national legislation shall determine the scope of the guarantees provided for in this agreement concerning its application to the Armed Forces and the Police.
2. In accordance with the principles set forth in paragraph 8 of article 19 of the Constitution of the International Labor Organization, the ratification of this Convention by a Member cannot be considered as prejudicing in any way existing laws, judgments, customs or agreements, grant members of the armed forces and the police the guarantees prescribed in this Convention.

 

This approval is especially important since it implies a change in the union model, and could mean the end to the so-called white unions, with this the door opens for free membership, the plurality of unions, the non-withholding of union dues by of employers and authorities, and the validation of negotiations by affiliates.