The Sectorial Directorate of Infonavit Workers (DST) is a body that represents the beneficiaries and accredited of said institute. In an interview with + Money from Forbes Mexico, its owner, Mario Macías Robles, spoke of the high cost of coyotaje for workers and the implementation of the Certified Union Advisor program focused on training and certifying certain employees of each company, so that they are the direct link with Infonavit and support their co-workers permanently and closely in the management of their procedures with the housing institute.
The program seeks to address four main aspects:
- Mitigate the so-called coyotaje
- Facilitate information processes on the financial and credit situation of the beneficiary
- Advise you permanently on social collection options, unemployment insurance and forms of payment
- Prevent workers from requesting and losing vacation days on account, to carry out procedures related to their credit, among other advantages.
No more vacations destined to do paperwork with Infonavit
“It regularly takes the worker from five to 10 business days to have his credit formalized, from gathering his documentation, looking for the house, contacting the seller, integrating the entire file and formalizing the signature before a notary public. This affects the permits that are requested from companies and even makes the worker have to lose his days off to resolve paperwork. The Certified Union Advisor avoids the physical transfer and absenteeism in the work centers, this figure takes the ‘window of doubts and reception of the loan request’ directly to the companies ”, said the director of the DST.
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The initiative of this program arose in an assembly of consultative commissions of the workers sector that took place in October 2018 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, however, it was not until last year when the Board of Directors officially approved this initiative , whose objective is that a member of the union in the workplace is trained by Infonavit, so that their skills and competencies are certified to provide information and clarify the doubts of their fellow workers.
The Certified Union Advisor will be able to manage the credit applications that their colleagues have, avoiding their physical displacement to the service centers or delegations, this advisor (or advisor) will be a fundamental part in the integration of the files and procedures before the credit area of each instance.
“The intention is that in every place where there is an employer who is complying with his contribution of 5% and there are workers who are accumulating balance in their account, there is a Certified Union Advisor. That person must be a member of the union, someone who knows the workers and enjoys their trust. The Certified Union Advisor will not be able to charge for this management work, since he will have to have a salary with union leave. We take care of shielding this profile very carefully and we are designing a follow-up protocol so that this function does not deviate. We want total transparency and avoid at all costs that this leads to a union coyotaje ”, explained Mario Macías Robles.
A program open to all of Mexico
Since the program is just beginning, it has trained around 250 advisers who can offer coverage – depending on the needs of each company – of approximately 60,000 workers.
To be part of this program, the delegation must contact the Sectorial Directorate of Workers to start the training procedure.
“Any union organization in the country from any region can access us, it is not limited to some cities, the intention is that it operates throughout the national territory, it is for all union centrals without distinction, nor specification of nomenclature or size”, clarified the manager.
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The Certified Union Advisor is a key figure in the fight against coyotes, who regularly charge between 10 and 30% on the financing fund that they can process.
Mario Macías Robles indicated to + Money that, if a worker has $ 300,000 pesos, it is known that when he falls into the hands of a coyote, he can charge him between $ 30,000 and $ 90,000 pesos. There are more serious cases of identity theft, which many times already implies an organized crime network that falsifies data to obtain the total amount of a loan that can be up to one million 600 thousand pesos.
Data from the Infonavit Transparency Unit show that, from 2015 to 2021, 1,543 complaints were made nationally, of these 1,337 were through Mejoravit, which means that this product intended for the improvement and repair of a home is more permeable to coyotaje.
The states with the most fraud were Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Querétaro and Tamaulipas.
All procedures before Infonavit are free
Vulnerability and lack of information increase the possibility that a person will be defrauded. Remember that all Infonavit procedures are free. At Infonavit portal all workers can obtain timely and reliable reports on the procedures and requirements they need to meet. If you prefer, Infonavit Service Centers (Cesi) are at your disposal, here you can check their locations at the national level.
“For no reason should the worker be charged for the services provided by the institute,” concluded the head of the Infonavit Workers’ Sector Directorate.