Taking vacations to rest from our productive activities is also a human right, so given the lag that remained in this issue in Mexico, the Senate approved amending two articles of the Federal Labor Law (LFT), increasing the vacation period of workers from 6 to 12 days, after completing one year in an employment relationship.
These legislative changes, which must still be approved by the Chamber of Deputies, establish that, as of the second year of work, two vacation days will be increased until reaching 20.
As of the sixth year, the vacation period will be increased by two days for every five years of service, remaining as follows:
YEARS WORKED VACATION DAYS
Year 1 12 days
Year 2 14 days
Year 3 16 days
Year 4 18 days
Year 5 20 days
From 6 to 10 years 22 days
From 11 to 15 years 24 days
From 16 to 20 years 26 days
From 21 to 25 years 28 days
From 26 to 30 years 30 days
From 31 to 35 years 32 days
The minimum vacation that can be enjoyed, continuously, will be 12 days. For example, if you already have three years in your company, the 16 days that you have cannot be divided into two periods of eight days, but must be at least 12 continuous days of vacation.
Obviously, if your source of employment authorizes it, you could also take the 16 days together, but the latter is optional.
Known as “Dignified Vacations” for Mexican workers, this reform to the Federal Labor Law, proposed by the senators of Movimiento Ciudadano, was approved unanimously in the upper house with 89 votes in favor.
It should be clarified that the changes only increase vacation days, not the proportion of salary that must be paid as vacation premium, which is an additional 25% to the salary for each day of vacation.
Logically, by increasing vacation days, you will receive a higher vacation bonus, but this will only be because you will have more days off.
Thus, if a worker earns 500 pesos a day, after working for one year he can take 12 days of paid vacation, receiving 6,000 pesos of salary for those dozen days, to which a vacation bonus of 1,500 pesos will be added, giving a total of 7,500 pesos.
This calculation is done as follows: The amount earned per day is multiplied by the days of vacation, the result must then be multiplied by 0.25 to obtain the exact amount that corresponds to you as a vacation premium.
Until now, Mexico appears in the world as one of the countries with the least number of vacations for its workers, with only 6 days after completing the first year of work. On the other hand, in nations like Brazil, vacations add up to 30 days; in the United Kingdom 28; in France the vacation period is 25 days, and in Spain 22. In Latin America, workers in Chile have at least 15 vacation days.
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Surya Palacios Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.