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A 4 Day Week study reveals that 64% of companies that have implemented shorter work weeks report higher productivity.
This organization has uncovered worldwide campaigns to reduce the work week to four days and decrease from 40 to 32 hours with the same salary and benefits.
In Mexico, about 10.4 million people are currently working more than the limit of hours established by law, that is, 48 hours a week.
In recent months, much has been said about the Federal Labor Law (LFT) and the precepts that must be changed in it to grant more and better guarantees to Mexican workers, from reducing working hours to increasing the number of vacations corresponding to year; Now, the Labor and Welfare Commission of the Chamber of Deputies has received a new labor initiative: weeks of four and a half days, contemplating noon on Friday within the mandatory rest days.
This is a proposal delivered by the deputy José Luis Báez Guerrero, belonging to the parliamentary group of the National Action Party (PAN), who has also asked to create a Saturday bonus that forces companies and employers to pay extra to employees who work the Saturday days, as is currently the case with Sunday workdays.
This project is added to eight more under discussion within Congress, all in relation to the working hours of Mexicans, because, according to a study by the Oxford University titled “Working during non-standard work time undermines intrinsic motivation.”people who have to work on weekends and holidays decrease their motivation considerably in any public or private corporation, in addition to the fact that “Changes in work schedules affect interest in and enjoyment of work itself, with important consequences for work outcomes.”
They propose another labor initiative: weekly “bridges”
The conquest to reduce the working day and achieve a scheme of eight hours a day, six days a week took more than 100 years in Mexico, so it is not surprising that today the demands to increase the general rest of the workers and reduce your stress level burnout grow up
The latest project presented by the PAN legislator will now seek to amend Article 59 of the Federal Labor Law to establish weekly breaks “starting on Friday afternoon or any equivalent modality.”
This means that, if approved, each working week would begin on Monday and end in the middle of each Friday, in addition to the fact that working during the “bridge” weekend will be compulsorily remunerated.
“For every four and a half days of work, the worker will enjoy two and a half days of rest, at least, with full salary,” exposes the change provided for Article 69 of the LFT.
Also, although in the Currently, Article 71 of the LFT contemplates a Sunday bonus of a minimum 25 percent of salary For those who work this day, the legislative initiative seeks to extend the benefit to Saturdays, with the same amount.
From initiative to initiative, the issue is labor
To date, there are nine projects in the Mexican legislative chambers to reform the LFT, all of them with the same objective: to reduce the working day in the country and force employers to guarantee the well-being of their employees.
For now, the Federal Labor Law establishes that the limit of hours that a person must work is 48 hours per week, divided into a maximum of eight hours per day and six days per week; nevertheless, about 10.4 million Mexicans work more than the legal limit due to bad business management practices, according to data from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE).
For this reason, the Legislature has pending some proposals focused on improving the performance, productivity and mental health of workers. Some of the most important are:
- March 2019 – Deputy Carlos Alberto Valenzuela González (PAN). The initiative seeks to set a maximum working day of seven hours a day and two days off for every five workers. Noting that the reduction in working hours could not under any circumstances be subject to a decrease in salary.
- July 2019 – Deputy Andrés Pinto Caballero (MC). A working day of a maximum of 42 hours a week is proposed, that is, six hours of work less than those currently legalized.
- August 2022 – Senator Juan Zepeda (MC). He presented two projects, one to modify the Constitution and another to the LFT in order to reduce the working day by six and a half hours a day. His request was that work hours be phased out over three years to avoid an impact on the industry.
- August 2022 – Senator Ricardo Velázquez Meza (Morena). This project is one of the most ambitious and well-known, since it seeks to reduce the daily workday to six hours, that is, a little more than a full day of work per week.
- September 2022 – Senator Bertha Alicia Caraveo Camarena (Morena). It takes up the latest initiative of the lower house and proposes the same 42 maximum working hours for Mexico.
- October 2022 – general bench of the PT. Its objective is to reduce work days in a scheme in which for every five days of work, people are entitled to two days off, as long as these are Saturday and Sunday.
- November 2022 – Deputy José Luis Báez Guerrero (PAN). Work days of four and a half days are proposed, contemplating noon every Friday within the official break and a 25 percent bonus on the salary of those who work on Saturdays, thus adding to the mandatory extra salary that exists for Sunday bonus.
The changes to the Federal Labor Law will continue to generate conversation until the working day is truly regulated, since up to now there are three modalities: daytime (eight hours), nighttime (seven hours) and mixed (seven and a half hours), in which will have to be adjusted, in one way or another, the time that Mexicans allocate to their work, either during working hours or on days of mandatory rest and vacations.
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