“According to the OECD, Mexico is the country with the highest paid overtime, although only 3 percent of it is paid, as payment is omitted under various legal strategies”, warned Sales, a labor lawyer.
He explained that, according to the Labor Law, the first 9 hours of overtime must be paid at double the wage and subsequent hours of overtime must be paid at triple the wage, while the global average is 1.3 times the wage.
“ Given that this payment is omitted under various legal strategies, the role of labor inspections must be reviewed in order to guarantee compliance with the payment of overtime”, he said.
He added that, at the same time, Mexico is one of the OECD countries with the highest number of hours worked, that is 2,266 hours per year or 46 hours per week in average.
At the same time, it is the country with the lowest GDP per worked hour in the organization, with 94.83 USD per hour. Meanwhile, in countries like South Korea, 1,900 hours per year are worked and the GDP per worked hour is 121 USD.
Sales stated that, within the framework of the discussion for the reduction of weekly working hours from 48 to 40 hours, the payment of overtime, the role of labor inspections to ensure compliance with payment on a fairer and more equitable basis in addition to incentives for employers must be evaluated.
For his part, Héctor de la Cruz, a lawyer at the De la Vega & Martínez Rojas Law Firm, stated that workers and companies can find flexible arrangements in the discussion of the reduction of the weekly working hours. And one possibility could be payment by the hour.
“In this change in the model of working hours, companies and workers can find flexible arrangements for workers being paid for the hours that they are actually working. The IMSS [Mexican Social Security Institute] must also allow the registration of workers’ contributions to be recorded based on the hours that are actually worked because, as of today, the IMSS does not allow this, it only allows the record of full working days”, he said.
He added that another point of discussion is that a little over a year ago a reform to the Human Trafficking Law was passed, establishing that workers cannot be made to work above the maximum hours established by the Federal Labor Law.
That is, it is an illegal practice to have the worker work more than 9 hours of overtime per week, distributed over a maximum of three days.
“This reform, however, has not yet fully taken hold in all sectors, and there are companies that continue working under the old models and making people work more hours than the permitted ones”, he said.
