Article 123 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States

Every person has the right to decent and socially useful work; to that end, the creation of jobs and the social organization of work shall be promoted, in accordance with the law.

The State shall grant a monthly economic support equivalent to at least one current general minimum wage, to young persons between eighteen and twenty-nine years of age who are in labor unemployment and are not enrolled in any level of formal education, so that they may be trained for work for a period of up to twelve months in businesses, companies, workshops, shops and other economic units, under the terms established by the law.

The Congress of the Union, without contravening the following bases, shall issue laws on labor, which shall govern:

A.Among the workers, day laborers, domestic employees, artisans and, in a general manner, every employment contract:

I.The duration of the maximum working day shall be eight hours.

II.The maximum nighttime working day shall be 7 hours. The following are prohibited: unhealthy or dangerous work, industrial nighttime work and all other work after ten at night, for minors under sixteen years of age;

III.The use of the work of minors under fifteen years of age is prohibited. Those older than this age and under sixteen shall have as their maximum working day that of six hours.

IV.The working day shall be forty hours per week under the terms established by the Law.

For every six days of work, working persons shall enjoy at least one day of rest with full pay.

V.Women during pregnancy shall not perform work that requires considerable effort and represents a danger to their health in relation to the gestation; they shall necessarily enjoy a rest of six weeks prior to the date approximately set for childbirth and six weeks after it, and must receive their full wage and keep their employment and the rights they have acquired from the employment relationship. During the breastfeeding period they shall have two extraordinary rest periods per day, of half an hour each, to feed their children;

VI.The minimum wages that employees must enjoy shall be general or professional. The former shall govern in the geographic areas that are determined; the latter shall apply in determined branches of economic activity or in professions, trades or special jobs. The minimum wage may not be used as an index, unit, base, measure or reference for purposes other than its nature.

General minimum wages must be sufficient to satisfy the normal needs of a head of family, in the material, social and cultural order, and to provide for the compulsory education of the children. Professional minimum wages shall be set considering, in addition, the conditions of the different economic activities.

Minimum wages shall be set by a national commission composed of representatives of the employees, of the employers and of the government, which may be assisted by the special commissions of a consultative nature that it considers indispensable for the better performance of its functions.

VII.Equal work shall correspond to equal wage, without taking into account sex, gender or nationality. The laws shall establish the mechanisms tending to reduce and eradicate the gender wage gap.

VIII.The minimum wage shall be excepted from attachment, set-off or deduction.

IX.Employees shall have the right to a participation in the profits of companies, regulated in accordance with the following rules:

a)A National Commission, composed of representatives of the employees, of the employers and of the Government, shall set the percentage of profits that must be distributed among the employees;

b)The National Commission shall carry out the investigations and conduct the necessary and appropriate studies to know the general conditions of the national economy. It shall likewise take into consideration the need to promote the industrial development of the Country, the reasonable interest that capital must receive and the necessary reinvestment of capital;

c)The same Commission may review the percentage set when there are new studies and investigations that justify it.

d)The Law may except from the obligation to distribute profits newly created companies during a determined and limited number of years, exploration works and other activities when their nature and particular conditions justify it;

e)To determine the amount of the profits of each company, the taxable income shall be taken as the base in accordance with the provisions of the Income Tax Law. The employees may file before the corresponding Office of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público) the objections they deem convenient, adjusting to the procedure determined by the law;

f)The right of the employees to participate in the profits does not imply the power to intervene in the direction or administration of the companies.

X.The wage must be paid precisely in legal tender currency, and it is not permitted to make it effective with merchandise, nor with vouchers, tokens or any other representative sign with which it is intended to substitute the currency.

XI.When due to extraordinary circumstances the hours of the working day must be increased, there shall be paid as wage for this time one hundred percent more than that set for the ordinary hours. Extraordinary work shall not exceed twelve hours in one week, which may be distributed in up to four hours per day, in a maximum of four days in that period.

The extension of extraordinary time that exceeds that established in the preceding paragraph obliges the employing person to pay two hundred percent more of the wage that corresponds to the hours of the ordinary working day in accordance with the provisions of the applicable Law.

Persons under eighteen years of age may not work extraordinary time.

XII.Every agricultural, industrial, mining company or company of any other class of work shall be obliged, as determined by the regulatory laws, to provide its working persons with adequate housing. This obligation shall be fulfilled through the contributions that the companies make to a national housing fund in order to constitute deposits in favor of their working persons.

The fund shall establish a housing system with a social orientation for the working persons who are beneficiaries that allows obtaining cheap and sufficient credit for its acquisition or improvement; it may also acquire land and build housing, under the terms established by the law.

The issuance of a law for the creation of a body composed of representatives of the Federal Government, of the working and employing persons, which administers the resources of the national housing fund, is considered of social utility. Said law shall regulate the forms and procedures according to which the working persons may access the credits and housing under social lease, mentioned above.

The law shall establish the terms and conditions for the working persons to access the housing under social lease, as well as the right to acquire it as property. The monthly payment of the social lease may not exceed thirty percent of the wage of the working persons.

In any case, preference of access to the housing under social lease shall be given to the working persons who have contributed continuously to the fund and do not have their own housing. The law shall provide mechanisms to avoid discretion or arbitrary interferences that limit access to this right.

The establishments referred to in the first paragraph of this section, located outside the towns, are obliged to establish schools, infirmaries and other services necessary to the community.

Furthermore, in those same work centers, when their population exceeds two hundred (sic DOF 09-01-1978) inhabitants, a space of land must be reserved, which shall not be less than five thousand square meters, for the establishment of public markets, installation of buildings destined for municipal services and recreational centers.

The establishment of outlets of intoxicating beverages and of gambling houses is prohibited in every work center.

XIII.Companies, whatever their activity, shall be obliged to provide their employees with training or instruction for work. The regulatory law shall determine the systems, methods and procedures according to which the employers must comply with said obligation.

XIV.The employers shall be responsible for the work accidents and the occupational diseases of the employees, suffered by reason of or in the exercise of the profession or work they perform; therefore, the employers must pay the corresponding compensation (indemnity), according to whether it has brought as a consequence death or simply temporary or permanent incapacity to work, in accordance with what the laws determine. This responsibility shall subsist even in the case that the employer contracts the work through an intermediary.

XV.The employer shall be obliged to observe, in accordance with the nature of its business, the legal precepts on hygiene and safety in the installations of its establishment, and to adopt the adequate measures to prevent accidents in the use of machines, instruments and work materials, as well as to organize it in such a way that the greatest guarantee results for the health and life of the employees, and of the product of conception, when it deals with pregnant women. The laws shall contain, to that effect, the corresponding sanctions in each case;

XVI.Both the workers and the employers shall have the right to form coalitions in defense of their respective interests, forming labor unions, professional associations, etc.

XVII.The laws shall recognize as a right of the workers and of the employers, the strikes and the stoppages.

XVIII.Strikes shall be lawful when they have as their object to achieve the equilibrium among the various factors of production, harmonizing the rights of labor with those of capital. In the public services it shall be obligatory for the employees to give notice, ten days in advance, to the labor courts, of the date set for the suspension of work. Strikes shall be considered unlawful only when the majority of the strikers exercises violent acts against persons or properties, or in case of war, when they belong to the establishments and services that depend on the Government.

When it deals with obtaining the conclusion of a collective employment contract, it must be proven that there is representation of the employees.

XIX.Stoppages shall be lawful only when the excess of production makes it necessary to suspend work to maintain prices at a cost-effective limit, with prior approval of the labor courts.

XX.The resolution of the differences or the conflicts between employees and employers shall be in charge of the labor courts of the Federal Judiciary or of the states (federal entities), whose members shall be designated attending to the provisions of articles 94, 97, 116 section III, and 122 subsection A, section IV of this Constitution, as corresponds, and must have capacity and experience in labor matters. Their judgments (sentencias) and resolutions must observe the principles of legality, impartiality, transparency, autonomy and independence.

Before going to the labor courts, the employees and employers must attend the corresponding conciliatory instance. In the local order, the conciliatory function shall be in charge of the Conciliation Centers, specialized and impartial, that are instituted in the states (federal entities). Said centers shall have legal personality and their own patrimony. They shall have full technical, operative, budgetary, decision-making and management autonomy. They shall be governed by the principles of certainty, independence, legality, impartiality, reliability, efficacy, objectivity, professionalism, transparency and publicity. Their integration and functioning shall be determined in the local laws.

The law shall determine the procedure that must be observed in the conciliatory instance. In every case, the conciliation stage shall consist of a single obligatory hearing, with date and time duly set in an expeditious manner. The subsequent conciliation hearings shall only be held with the agreement of the parties in conflict. The law shall establish the rules so that the labor agreements acquire the status of res judicata, as well as for their execution.

In the federal order, the conciliatory function shall be in charge of a decentralized body. The decentralized body shall also be responsible for the registration of all the collective employment contracts and the labor union organizations, as well as all the related administrative processes.

The federal decentralized body shall also have competence to hear the matters related to the access to public information of the labor unions and shall hear the review appeals that private persons file regarding their resolutions.

The decentralized body referred to in the preceding paragraph shall have legal personality and its own patrimony, full technical, operative, budgetary, decision-making and management autonomy. It shall be governed by the principles of certainty, independence, legality, impartiality, reliability, efficacy, objectivity, professionalism, transparency and publicity. Its integration and functioning shall be determined in the applicable law.

For the designation of the head of the decentralized body referred to in the preceding paragraph, the Federal Executive shall submit a shortlist of three to the consideration of the Senate, which, after the appearance of the proposed persons, shall make the corresponding designation. The designation shall be made by the vote of two thirds of the members of the Senate present, within the non-extendable period of thirty days. If the Senate does not resolve within said period, the person who, within said shortlist, is designated by the Federal Executive shall occupy the position.

In case the Senate rejects the totality of the proposed shortlist, the Federal Executive shall submit a new one, under the terms of the preceding paragraph. If this second shortlist is rejected, the person who within said shortlist is designated by the Federal Executive shall occupy the position.

The appointment must fall on a person who has capacity and experience in the matters of the competence of the decentralized body; who has not occupied a position in any political party, nor has been a candidate to occupy a public position of popular election in the three years prior to the designation; and who enjoys good reputation and has not been convicted of an intentional crime. Likewise, they must comply with the requirements established by the law. They shall perform their charge for periods of six years and may be reelected on a single occasion. In case of absolute absence, the substitute shall be appointed to conclude the respective period. They may only be removed for serious cause under the terms of Title IV of this Constitution and may not have any other employment, position or commission, with the exception of those in which they act in representation of the body and of the unpaid ones in teaching, scientific, cultural or charitable activities.

XXI.If the employer refuses to submit their differences to arbitration or to comply with the resolution, the employment contract shall be deemed terminated and they shall be obliged to compensate the worker with the amount of three months of wage, in addition to the responsibility resulting from the conflict. This provision shall not be applicable in the cases of the actions set forth in the following section. If the refusal is by the employees, the employment contract shall be deemed terminated.

XXII.The employer who dismisses a worker without justified cause or because they have joined an association or labor union, or because they have taken part in a lawful strike, shall be obliged, at the choice of the employee, to comply with the contract or to compensate them with the amount of three months of wage. The Law shall determine the cases in which the employer may be exempted from the obligation to comply with the contract, through the payment of a compensation (indemnity). Likewise, they shall have the obligation to compensate the employee with the amount of three months of wage, when they withdraw from the service due to lack of probity of the employer or due to receiving from them ill treatment, whether against their person or that of their spouse, parents, children or siblings. The employer may not exempt themselves from this responsibility, when the ill treatment comes from dependents or family members who act with the consent (sic DOF 21-11-1962) or tolerance of the employer.

XXII Bis. The procedures and requirements that the law establishes to ensure the freedom of collective bargaining and the legitimate interests of employees and employers must guarantee, among others, the following principles:

a)Representativeness of the labor union organizations, and

b)Certainty in the signing, registration and deposit of the collective employment contracts.

For the resolution of conflicts between labor unions, the request for the conclusion of a collective employment contract and the election of leaders, the vote of the employees shall be personal, free and secret. The law shall guarantee compliance with these principles. Based on the foregoing, for the election of leaders, the labor union statutes may, in accordance with the provisions of the law, set procedural modalities applicable to the respective processes.

XXIII.The credits in favor of the employees for wage or salaries accrued in the last year, and for compensations (indemnities), shall have preference over any others in the cases of insolvency proceedings or of bankruptcy.

XXIV.Of the debts contracted by the employees in favor of their employers, of their associates, family members or dependents, only the employee themselves shall be responsible, and in no case and for no reason may the members of their family be required, nor shall said debts be enforceable for the amount exceeding the salary of the employee in one month.

XXV.The service for the placement of the employees shall be free for them, whether it is carried out by municipal offices, employment exchanges or by any other official or private institution.

In the provision of this service, the demand for work shall be taken into account and, under equal conditions, those who represent the only source of income in their family shall have priority.

XXVI.Every employment contract entered into between a Mexican and a foreign employer must be legalized by the competent municipal authority and endorsed by the Consul of the Nation to which the employee must go, on the understanding that, in addition to the ordinary clauses, it shall be clearly specified that the repatriation expenses remain at the charge of the contracting employer.

XXVII.The following shall be null conditions and shall not oblige the contracting parties, even if expressed in the contract:

a)Those that stipulate an inhumane working day for being notoriously excessive, given the nature of the work.

b)Those that set a wage that is not remunerative in the judgment of the labor courts.

c)Those that stipulate a period greater than one week for the receipt of the day's pay.

d)Those that designate a place of recreation, inn, café, tavern, bar or shop to make the payment of the wage, when it does not deal with employees in those establishments.

e)Those that entail direct or indirect obligation to acquire the articles of consumption in determined shops or places.

f)Those that permit withholding the wage as a fine.

g)Those that constitute a waiver made by the worker of the compensations (indemnities) to which they are entitled for work accident, and occupational diseases, damages caused by the breach of the contract or by being dismissed from the work.

h)All the other stipulations that imply a waiver of any right established in favor of the worker in the laws of protection and assistance to the employees.

XXVIII.The laws shall determine the goods that constitute the patrimony of the family, goods that shall be inalienable, may not be subject to real encumbrances nor attachments, and shall be transferable by way of inheritance with simplification of the formalities of the succession proceedings.

XXIX.The Social Security Law is of public utility, and it shall comprise insurance for invalidity, old age, life, involuntary cessation of work, illnesses and accidents, nursery services and any other aimed at the protection and well-being of the employees, peasants, non-salaried persons and other social sectors and their family members.

XXX.Likewise, the cooperative societies for the construction of cheap and hygienic houses, destined to be acquired as property by the employees in determined installments, shall be considered of social utility.

XXXI.The application of the labor laws corresponds to the authorities of the states (federal entities), of their respective jurisdictions, but it is of the exclusive competence of the federal authorities in the matters related to:

a)Industrial branches and services.

1.Textile;

2.Electrical;

3.Cinematographic;

4.Rubber;

5.Sugar;

6.Mining;

7.Metallurgical and iron and steel, covering the exploitation of the basic minerals, the benefit and smelting thereof, as well as the obtaining of metallic iron and steel in all its forms and alloys and the rolled products thereof;

8.Hydrocarbons;

9.Petrochemical;

10.Cement;

11.Lime;

12.Automotive, including mechanical or electrical auto parts;

13.Chemical, including pharmaceutical chemistry and medicines;

14.Cellulose and paper;

15.Vegetable oils and fats;

16.Food producer, covering exclusively the manufacture of those that are packed, canned or bottled or that are destined to it;

17.Producer of beverages that are bottled or canned or that are destined to it;

18.Railroad;

19.Basic timber, which comprises the sawmill production and the manufacture of plywood or wood agglomerates;

20.Glass, exclusively as regards the manufacture of flat, smooth or worked glass, or of glass containers; and

21.Tobacco, which comprises the benefit or manufacture of tobacco products;

22.Banking and credit services.

b)Companies:

1.Those that are administered in direct or decentralized form by the Federal Government;

2.Those that act by virtue of a federal contract or concession and the industries that are related to them; and

3.Those that carry out works in federal zones or that are under federal jurisdiction, in the territorial waters or in those comprised in the exclusive economic zone of the Nation.

c)Matters:

1.The registration of all the collective employment contracts and the labor union organizations, as well as all the related administrative processes;

2.The application of the labor provisions in the matters related to conflicts that affect two or more states (federal entities);

3.Collective contracts that have been declared obligatory in more than one state (federal entity);

4.Employer obligations in educational matters, under the terms of law, and

5.Obligations of the employers in matters of training and instruction of their employees, as well as of safety and hygiene in the work centers, for which the federal authorities shall have the assistance of the state ones, when it deals with branches or activities of local jurisdiction, under the terms of the corresponding law.

B.Among the Powers of the Union and their employees:

I.The maximum daily working day of daytime and nighttime work shall be eight and seven hours respectively. Those that exceed shall be extraordinary and shall be paid with one hundred percent more of the remuneration set for the ordinary service. In no case may the extraordinary work exceed three hours per day nor three consecutive times;

II.For every six days of work, the employee shall enjoy at least one day of rest, with full pay;

III.The employees shall enjoy paid vacations that shall never be less than twenty days per year;

IV.The wages shall be set in the respective budgets without their amount being able to be diminished during their validity, subjecting to the provisions of article 127 of this Constitution and in the law.

In no case may the wages be less than the minimum for the employees in general in the states (federal entities).

V.Equal work shall correspond to equal wage, without taking into account sex or gender. The laws shall establish the mechanisms tending to reduce and eradicate the gender wage gap;

VI.Retentions, discounts, deductions or attachments to the wage may only be made in the cases provided in the laws;

VII.The designation of the personnel shall be made through systems that allow appreciating the knowledge and aptitudes of the applicants. The State shall organize schools of Public Administration;

VIII.The employees shall enjoy seniority rights (escalafón) so that promotions are granted in function of the knowledge, aptitudes and seniority. Under equal conditions, the person who represents the only source of income in their family shall have priority;

XI (sic 05-12-1960). The employees may only be suspended or removed for justified cause, under the terms established by the law.

In case of unjustified separation they shall have the right to opt for reinstatement in their work or for the corresponding compensation (indemnity), after the legal procedure. In the cases of suppression of positions, the affected employees shall have the right to be granted another equivalent to the suppressed one or the compensation (indemnity) of law;

X.The employees shall have the right to associate for the defense of their common interests. They may likewise make use of the right to strike, after complying with the requirements determined by the law, with respect to one or several dependencies of the Public Powers, when the rights that this article grants them are violated in a general and systematic manner;

XI.Social security shall be organized in accordance with the following minimum bases:

a)It shall cover the occupational accidents and diseases; the non-occupational diseases and maternity; and retirement, invalidity, old age and death.

b)In case of accident or illness, the right to work shall be preserved for the time determined by the law.

c)Women during pregnancy shall not perform work that requires considerable effort and represents a danger to their health in relation to the gestation; they shall necessarily enjoy one month of rest before the date approximately set for childbirth and another two after it, and must receive their full wage and keep their employment and the rights they have acquired from the employment relationship. During the breastfeeding period they shall have two extraordinary rest periods per day, of half an hour each, to feed their children. In addition, they shall enjoy medical and obstetric assistance, medicines, aids for breastfeeding and the service of childcare nurseries.

d)The family members of the employees shall have the right to medical assistance and medicines, in the cases and in the proportion determined by the law.

e)Centers for vacations and for recovery shall be established, as well as economical shops for the benefit of the employees and their family members.

f)The employees shall be provided with cheap housing, for lease or sale, in accordance with the programs previously approved. In addition, the State, through the contributions it makes, shall establish a national housing fund in order to constitute deposits in favor of said employees and establish a financing system that allows granting them cheap and sufficient credit so that they acquire comfortable and hygienic housing as property, or to build them, repair them, improve them or pay liabilities acquired for these concepts.

The contributions that are made to said fund shall be delivered to the body in charge of social security, and the form and procedure according to which the aforementioned fund shall be administered and the respective credits granted and awarded shall be regulated in its Law and in those that correspond.

XII.The individual, collective or inter-union conflicts shall be submitted to a Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Court (Tribunal Federal de Conciliación y Arbitraje) integrated as provided in the regulatory law. Likewise, it shall hear the matters related to the access to public information of the labor unions of the employees in the service of the State and the review appeals that private persons file regarding their resolutions.

The conflicts between the Federal Judiciary and its servants, as well as those that arise between the Supreme Court of Justice and its employees, shall be resolved by the Judicial Discipline Tribunal (Tribunal de Disciplina Judicial).

XIII.The military personnel, marines, members of the National Guard, personnel of the foreign service, agents of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público), experts and the members of the police institutions shall be governed by their own laws.

The agents of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público), the experts and the members of the police institutions of the Federation, the states (federal entities) and the Municipalities, may be separated from their positions if they do not comply with the requirements that the laws in force at the moment of the act establish to remain in said institutions, or removed for incurring in responsibility in the performance of their functions. If the judicial authority resolves that the separation, removal, discharge, cessation or any other form of termination of service was unjustified, the State shall only be obliged to pay the compensation (indemnity) and other benefits to which they are entitled, without in any case their reincorporation to the service being proper, whatever the result of the trial or means of defense that may have been filed.

The federal, state (federal entity) and municipal authorities, in order to foster the strengthening of the social security system of the personnel of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público), of the police corporations and of the expert services, of their families and dependents, shall implement complementary social security systems.

The State shall provide to the members in active service of the Army, Air Force, Navy and National Guard, the benefits referred to in subparagraph f) of section XI of this subsection, in similar terms and through the body in charge of the social security of the components of said institutions;

XIII bis. The central bank and the entities of the Federal Public Administration that form part of the Mexican banking system shall govern their labor relations with their employees by the provisions of this Subsection.

XIV.The law shall determine the positions that shall be considered positions of trust. The persons who fill them shall enjoy the measures of protection of the wage and shall enjoy the benefits of social security.