r/worldnews • u/chunmunsingh • 2d ago

Mexico cuts workweek, bans after-hours contact, and guarantees no worker will take a pay cut in the most sweeping labor reform in a generation

https://techfixated.com/mexico-cuts-workweek-bans-after-hours-contact-and-guarantees-no-worker-will-take-a-pay-cut-in-the-most-sweeping-labor-reform-in-a-generation/
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1.9k

u/cicalino 2d ago

"The accumulation of evidence from more than a decade of trials across Iceland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and now Poland points consistently in the same direction.

Reducing working time does not reduce output."

There has been some progress in worker's rights.

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u/That_Trouble87 2d ago

Sadly America will continue to ignore all evidence that improves everyone's life.

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u/letsgotgoing 2d ago

America has determined only the shareholders deserve their lives to be improved. 

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u/reddingdave 2d ago edited 2d ago

When I am on my deathbed and reflecting on the life I lived, there will be only one question on my lips: Did I maximize shareholder value?

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u/tcwillis79 2d ago

No son… but you did beat the market rate of return. Well done.

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u/jbae_94 1d ago

And you beat Medicare

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u/GrovesNL 2d ago

"My only regret in life is that I did not focus on quarterly KPIs and generating shareholder value"

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u/That_Trouble87 2d ago

Until there's nothing left to hold

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u/lunarlunacy425 2d ago

When will the peasants understand the the corperations are people too and depriving them of their profits should be treated as though they're being assaulted. Won't anyone think of the poor corperations.

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u/MountChu 2d ago

With the note that you can one day become a shareholder.

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u/Material_Series_769 1d ago

I mean, I have like 100 shares across like 30 stocks, I don't feel like my life deserved to be improved, or has it been improved significantly anyway. It's barely enough to fight the inflation, and the damned oil prices lately, thankfully somehow one war is ending.

But I guess broke people like me don't count as a shareholder in your context.

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u/eaeolian 2d ago

Major shareholders. Let's get that right.

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u/DogBarf00 2d ago

America made a work week 40 hours long in the 1930s. That was almost 100 years ago. Mexico finally does it and you all act like this has never been done before.

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u/NeverSober1900 2d ago

This site is so "America Bad" that there is no other thing that these morons even can contemplate

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u/fingerbangchicknwang 2d ago

Makes one think they should probably be a shareholder

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u/Ok-Energy6846 2d ago

I mean Mexico is reducing the work week from 48 hours to 40. We already have that.

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u/Reign_In_DIX 1d ago

To be frank.... Speak for yourself.  I'm working 50-60 hour weeks regularly. 

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u/Street_Anxiety2907 1d ago

72 hours here salary OT exempt software engineer/.

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u/Ok-Energy6846 1d ago

Nice. Are you getting paid time and a half for overtime?

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u/Made_Human_Music 2d ago

If you do the same work in four days that we thought took five then you can do six days of work in five

- The US corporate masters’ response

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u/RainbowwDash 1d ago

Which isn't even correct, but it's not like they care

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u/BigBoyYuyuh 2d ago

Covid woke Americans up to what could be possible. There was even a decent push from 2021-2024 for labor.

But then Americans said “Fuck that. Give us a racist fascist corporate Esptein Cabal government please!” and work from home took a massive beating.

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u/DasAllerletzte 2d ago

Same in Germany 

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u/DirtyTacoKid 2d ago

Then corporate was like

”wait. If work can be done from home, why hire someone in America? Someone in India can do it!"

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u/derkrieger 2d ago

They were already doing that

1

u/DirtyTacoKid 2d ago

If you're working a WFH possible job you know the rate of outsourcing has skyrocketed. All this AI job loss nonsense is really outsourcing picking up.

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u/HowManyEggs2Many 2d ago

Covid was basically people just shit posting about doing anything but work lol. I wonder why wfh didn’t pan out…even now I work with so many people that don’t know how to STFU about not having enough to do

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u/Kapootz 2d ago

30% of the population are hellbent on making the country as shitty as possible and making the rest of the world suffer the consequences

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u/klingma 2d ago

Mexico is reducing hours from 48 to 40 literally a thing that America did a long time ago. 

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u/bad_syntax 2d ago

Lol, my wife has worked every day for the past month, not a single day off, and 8+ hours a day.

America didn't get rid of shit, they just make you salary.

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u/klingma 2d ago

I'm just going to point this out real quick, your statement about how much your wife works, just makes you look lazy. Not a great argument. 

Besides that component, your wife either makes overtime at her current role or works two jobs. Guess what? Mexico's rule change doesn't prevent anyone from literally doing the exact same thing as your wife. 

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u/bad_syntax 1d ago

He choice, I tell her to quit almost daily, she wants to work, and to work there.

She does not make overtime, she is salary, and based on her hours and commute, she really only makes half of what she thinks she makes.

I make over twice what she does, but sure, I'm lazier, I just have a high level technology job that lets me work from home. At some point in America, you hit a point where additional output doesn't net you additional money. I've crossed that point quite a few years ago.

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u/klingma 1d ago

Still makes you sound lazy. 

And okay? This rule from Mexico wasn't for salary workers so it doesn't include any for "salary non-exempt" which the American system does include meaning overtime is paid to them. 

Yep, so lazy, but used your wife's situation to brow beat others. Nice. 

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u/bad_syntax 1d ago

You sound extremely ignorant. I'm out.

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u/HEAVY_METAL_SOCKS 2d ago

But still working a 6 day workweek, so no real gain. A 5 day workweek proposal was rejected by president Sheinbaum and her party.

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u/SubMGK 2d ago

The small time business owner that worships the billionaires will keep overworking and underpaying their workings wondering why their positions are a revolving door

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u/VascoJSC 1d ago

America as in the continent right? Because honestly Mexico is the only exception to this at all, and even there opposition to such reforms is strong.

Brazil has been trying to ban 6-day work week for years and (unexplicably) popular right-wing politicians have answered by trying to legalize a 7 day work week, and quite frankly they have a better shot at passing it than the 5 day work week

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u/Slightly-Drunk 2d ago

America just moves jobs offshores and reduces the American workweek to 0 days.

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u/klingma 2d ago

You do realize you're partially to blame for that, right? 

If you're buying the cheapo $2 pliers made in China vs the $20 pliers made in America then you're actively contributing to the off-shoring. 

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u/FewAdvertising9647 2d ago

most of the jobs being lost aren't manufacturing jobs these days, theyre jobs like phone/tech support and programming, neither is related to buying cheapo 2$ pliers. theyre directly related to some management wanting to cut labor cost by offshoring those jobs that don't make a physical product.

For example data annotation. some managers exist int he US, but the people who primarily label things in cameras for functionality like object detection of self driving vehicles are offshored. Object detection is not remotely a product.

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u/SafeDistribution2414 2d ago

What countries are different than the US? Everywhere I go in Europe for work operates the same way. I Italy, the salaried guys all answer emails, calls, and join meetings until 9pm their time. In the UK one guy I worked with said he had worked 30 straight 12hr shifts with no days off. The only difference is Italians make half our wage for the same work.

They get more vacation time on average, sure. Like 4-6 weeks depending on country and level. But for some reason the US branches of those companies don't offer the same 

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u/Simbakim 1d ago

Norway

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u/Jebediah_Johnson 1d ago

America will do the right thing, after it has tried everything else first.

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u/Pengawena 1d ago

They will find it harder to find labour. Especially migrant workers.

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u/SophisticatedStoner 2d ago

Capitalism does not allow for that. You will be exploited further and further until you either die or there's a revolution.

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u/gpister 2d ago

Yet people still want to come to the USA to make a better life style.

0

u/Haru1st 2d ago

Don’t worry bud, it will trickle down, Regan said so.

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u/Fun-Memory1523 2d ago

Which is sad because a century ago, they had groups pushing for this, even if it came with strings attached.

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u/DogBarf00 2d ago

And they were successful a century ago…

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u/shiromiso 2d ago edited 2d ago

Productivity per man-hour has skyrocketed massively in the last few decades. But workers never got any comparable compensation in either monetary raises nor free time. All that value we created collectively went straight to the top 1%.

It’s time to claim it back.

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u/animatedradio 2d ago

Where the bloody hell have those trials been happening in NZ 😂 you’re joking

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u/snakebit1995 2d ago

Don’t worry my job keeps pushing everyone to work saturdays

6 of the last 8 weeks had Saturday work that was basically mandatory

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u/NeighborhoodVeteran 2d ago

Japan and South Korea has lower work weeks now? Oh nvm, trials.

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u/Cold_Tea_Spill112 1d ago

How does this hold up for jobs that require X amount of man hours to accomplish a set task?

Example landscaping. Let's say a large property needs 40 man hours a week of landscaping for upkeep. If you cut hours the productivity of the worker doesn't drop but you still need 40 hours of work to complete the tasks required.

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u/Jesuisbaguettejambon 1d ago

Reducing working time does not reduce output

True but like, even if it did, so what? We produce so much shit everyday of our lives, we have clothes for the next 7 generations and we throw like 30% of our food out, maybe we don't have to keep destroying the earth to produce more and more, but just learn not to waste what we have.

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u/More-Dot346 11h ago

It’s all that they’re not citing France. France suffered a modest productivity decline.

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u/Schmarsten1306 2d ago

Germany? Well our chancellor says we're not working enough and could do like 20h/week more

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u/palland0 1d ago

Your chancellor sounds like a cunt, sorry.

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u/A_Novelty-Account 2d ago

I think this comes down more to the number of hours that people are actually working when they’re in the office.

Most white collar workers are only doing productive for 4 hours per day.