The 28-year-old housekeeper works six days each week. So do hundreds of thousands of different working-class individuals in Mexico — resort workers, auto assemblers, waiters.
However now, employees in america’ No. 1 buying and selling associate are rebelling. The Mexican Congress is debating a constitutional modification to ensure workers two days off per week, a proposal pushed by unions. Over eight many years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered within the five-day workweek in america, it lastly could be coming to Mexico.
“Each employee desires of this,” de la Cruz stated. “Extra social justice.”
The Mexican employees’ struggle for the 40-hour week comes amid a rising world debate over work schedules. But there’s a huge divide in how that dialog is taking part in out. Whereas North Individuals and Europeans experiment with a four-day week, many workers in creating international locations toil six days — or extra. (In India, a tech billionaire lately triggered an uproar by suggesting a 70-hour week.)
The controversy goes to elementary questions of employees’ rights and their obligations to their corporations and their nations’ growth.
De la Cruz joined 1000’s of cooks, waitresses, bellboys and gardeners marching by means of downtown Cancún underneath a late-afternoon solar final month, chanting “Sure to 2 days off!”
“We’ve seen how different international locations have shorter hours than us,” she stated.
However Mexico is much less productive than extra developed international locations, stated Jesús Almaguer, president of the Lodge Affiliation of Cancún. “First, we’ve got to develop economically and industrially to be able to have these” — he paused — “these privileges.”
A brash lawyer says: ‘That is the second’
The five-day struggle’s most seen champion is Susana Prieto, a raspy-voiced labor lawyer who as soon as labored in an meeting plant in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the maquiladora heart throughout from El Paso After she gained election to Congress in 2021 with the governing Morena get together, she found there had been prior efforts to legislate a five-day workweek. Seventeen of them, to be exact.
“I stated, ‘I believe that is the second,’” Prieto recalled.
Morena had a majority in Congress and managed greater than half of state legislatures — essential for amending the structure. And get together founder Andrés Manuel López Obrador had emerged as Mexico’s most pro-labor president in many years.
Since taking workplace in 2018, he has tripled the minimal wage, to the equal of round $1.80 an hour. He has doubled mandated trip time, to 12 days a yr. He has outlawed the abusive “subcontracting” of full-time workers.
And Latin America was starting to alter. Historically, “our mannequin of growth has been based mostly on low salaries and uncooked supplies,” stated Juan Carlos Moreno Brid, an economist on the Nationwide Autonomous College of Mexico. However Colombia and Chile, each led by leftists, handed legal guidelines this yr to shorten the workweek.
In April, Prieto’s invoice was accepted by the Home Committee on constitutional Points.
“The enterprise house owners had a coronary heart assault,” she stated.
Mexican unions turn out to be an actual factor
The push for change hasn’t come solely from above. Unions have turn out to be extra impartial, partially because of the revamped North American free-trade settlement that took impact in 2020. In the negotiations, Mexico agreed to reform its system of weak, business-controlled unions. Now, employees have the best to decide on their labor leaders by secret poll.
That has empowered individuals equivalent to Mario Machuca, the Cancún-based regional consultant for the Revolutionary Confederation of Employees and Peasants. The union has spearheaded protests in favor of the five-day workweek.
“At present, these of us who’re [union] leaders can increase our voices in favor of the employees,” he stated. “As a result of we actually are their legit representatives.”
The labor reforms are getting an extra enhance from a brand new technology of Mexicans who’re extra related to the world — and one another — by the web, migration and tourism.
Alejandra Chang, 32, grew up watching her father work six days every week as a waiter. Now she does the identical at a Cancún resort, Seadust. Between work and her commute — no less than an hour every approach — she has little private time. She is decided to alter that.
One other time without work every week “would change my life,” she stated. “I’d see my household.”
José Rubén Cob, 33, a cook dinner on the Hyatt Ziva resort, has little question what’s driving the employee mobilization. He holds up his iPhone. “It’s due to this,” he stated. Employees are utilizing Fb and WhatsApp to arrange demonstrations. “Now, if we share one thing right here in Cancún, you could find out about it all around the nation.”
Mexicans work lengthy hours, however productiveness lags
Mexico is among the many hardest-working of the main industrialized international locations, in accordance with knowledge from the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement, or OECD. The typical employee clocks 2,226 hours a yr — 415 greater than in america, and 540 greater than in Canada.
However Mexico has lagged woefully in productiveness: GDP per employee grew simply 0.1 % a yr from 1991 to 2020, in accordance with the World Financial institution. Progress throughout the OECD, a gaggle of principally rich North American and European international locations, averaged 1.1 % throughout that interval. And round half the workforce nonetheless labors within the casual sector, with little entry to authorized protections or advantages. Economists warn that the casual sector might develop as employers attempt to dodge new wage and schedule reforms.
In Cancún, a prime overseas vacation spot for American vacationers, employers fear they should rent extra employees to fill shifts, after which move on the prices to shoppers. Angélica Frías, the state consultant of Coparmex, the nationwide enterprise house owners’ affiliation, has two phrases for the pro-labor of us: Punta Cana.
The Dominican resort “will take away the vacationers,” she stated. “Will probably be cheaper to go to different locations.”
Frías, head of a consulting agency, prides herself on operating a contemporary firm. She wears a banana-yellow blazer and denims. On the wall is a big stencil of Steve Jobs. However even she has been shocked by the flurry of labor reforms snaking by means of Congress.
There’s a transfer to provide new dads a paid, month-long paternity go away. A “chair legislation” mandates seats and relaxation breaks for workers who work on their ft. It might not be completely coincidental, she stated, that the presidential elections in June is looming.
Prieto factors to research that present that lowering the workweek can lead to better-rested, more-productive workers. However López Obrador, dealing with blowback from employers, lately urged Congress to carry a brand new spherical of negotiations on the change.
The delay hasn’t discouraged the employees in Cancún, who’re ready to march once more.
“That is one thing we want,” stated Chang, the Seadust employee. “Two days off.”
Lorena Rios and Gabriela Martínez in Mexico Metropolis contributed to this report.