In May 2019, an important labor reform was made public in Mexico. This reform to the Mexican legal system encompassed:
- Replacement of Labor Boards by Labor Courts, dependent on the Judicial Branch;
- Creation of a public federal center with conciliatory and registry functions, with similar local centers with conciliatory functions;
- Personal, free, direct and secret vote for the election of union representatives;
- Creation of procedures to guarantee the freedom of collective bargaining, assuring the representativeness of unions, the certainty in the execution and registry of agreements; and
- Obligation of unions to ratify all existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).
For each specific reform a date was set to finalize implementation. Importantly, Section 23-A of the United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA) established the obligation of all unions to ratify before May 1, 2023, by direct, personal, secret and free vote of all the workers, all existing collective bargaining agreements.