On January 6, 2020, the Mexican Congress issued the Organic Law of the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registry (Law), whereby the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registry (Center) has been created. The Center will be in charge of collective registration and individual conciliatory matters.

The Center is a public body, decentralized from the Federal Public Administration, whose main purposes will be to oversee the conciliation procedure between employees and employers on individual and collective matters under federal jurisdiction and to register nationally all collective bargaining agreements, official union contracts, internal labor regulation and trade union organizations. The Center will also handle all administrative-related processes related to its mission.

The Center will be located in Mexico City and will maintain a presence throughout Mexico through state offices.

Specific, primary duties assigned to the Center by the Law are:

• To perform its role in individual conciliations within the federal jurisdiction;
• To perform its role in collective conciliations within the federal jurisdiction;
• To establish the employees' professional service of the Center;
• To establish training plans;
• To assist unions or employees in procedures related to the election of union directive boards, as well as to verify the compliance of the democratic principles and applicable legal requirements;
• To convene and organize the headcounts for the consultation upon employees’ request or in case of reasonable doubt about the veracity of the documentation filed in the verification of the election of union directive boards;
• To issue non-conciliation certificates;
• To issue representation certificates;
• To verify the support of the employees´ majority in the collective bargaining agreements that rule them and their revision agreements, keeping the elections fair;
• To take into consideration the proposals and opinions of the Agreement and Productivity National Committee;
• To verify that employees were informed about the content of the employment collective bargaining contracts;
• To provide documentation and information to disputing unions, related to the collective bargaining agreement registry or about the administration of the official union contracts, rates, or list of affiliated employees;
• To publish union information, and provide a copy of the documents filed before the registry to those who request it;
• To establish a conciliatory and administrative management model; and
• To impose fines for failures to comply with the provisions set forth in the Federal Labor Law, in accordance with the applicable regulations.

The Law will take effect on January 7, 2020, the day after its publication, and the professional services shall begin the year after the creation of the Center. The implementation of the Center will occur gradually in accordance with the guidelines and handbooks issued by the Director of the Center and approved by the Governing Board.

On the other hand, the Center will begin assisting with the revision process for the collective bargaining agreements only after it begins its registry functions and issues the corresponding protocol for revisions.

Moreover, all those files presented before the Mexican Ministry of Labor, for the legitimization of collective bargaining agreements, will be transferred to the Center, which may decide to terminate those agreements that do not meet the requirements set forth in the Federal Labor Law.