The Department of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) reported that the salary recovery policy has not only allowed minimum wages to have a recovery of 110% of their purchasing power, but this will have an impact on the increments registered for contractual salaries, at the federal level, which had the highest increases of the last four six-year terms.
Contractual increases in the current administration are of 6.56% in nominal terms and 1.31% in real terms, in average. During Vicente Fox’s six-year term, the nominal increase was of 5.87% and the actual increase was 1.05%; in Felipe Calderon’s, 4.47% nominal and 0.14% real and in that of Enrique Peña Nieto, 4.40% nominal and 0.36% real.
“The increases achieved in this administration have occurred in spite of an adverse international panorama, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the increase in inflation resulting from the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, despite which an increase above inflation has been able to be reached”, the agency said.
The foregoing, said the STPS, is also a reflection of the union strength brought about by the labor reform, as 30,000 collective bargaining agreements have been legitimized, involving the call to 5 million workers to provide their endorsement through their personal, free, direct, and secret vote, that is, negotiations with the true support of the workers were successfully completed.
Contractual salary increases have shown a positive real increase in the last 18 months in the private sector. Some of the areas in which there have been positive increases are those of services, and the increases have been achieved by unions grouped in all union federations.
To this, one must add the increase to the minimum wage of 116% in real terms for the income conditions of the country’s workers, as a whole, to have remained positive and this without generating inflation, unemployment, and lack of investment.
In this regard, Óscar de la Vega, partner at D&M Abogados, said that workers are starting to be aware of the effects of the union democracy clauses and of the power that they now have in the collective bargaining processes.
“It is imminent that there will be a greater number of strike outbreaks, given that now, as a general rule, there is true negotiation between companies and unions, it is necessary to develop alternative means for reaching solutions and ending strikes”, he explained.
He pointed out that the Incorporation of unions with the Reform is extremely easy before the CRCRL [Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration], “and, therefore, we will shortly see various independent unions in several branches.”
