CHAPTER 9.—GENERAL MINIMUM WAGE
LEGISLATION IN MEXICO
Federal Legislation
VHE Constitution of Mexico! provides (art. 123, Par. VI) that
p every worker shall be entitled to a minimum wage sufficient,
according to the conditions of the region, to satisfy the normal
needs of life of the worker, his education, and his lawful pleasures,
considering him as the head of a family; besides which the workman
shall have the right to participate in the profits of the agricultural,
ommercial, manufacturing, or mining enterprise which employs him.
The constitution specifies that special commissions shall be appointed
in each municipality to determine the minimum wages and
the rate of profit sharing. (Art. 123, Par. IX.) These commissions
shall be subordinate to a central board of conciliation to be established
in each State.
State Legislation
Cox GRESS and the State legislatures are called upon to enact
laws in conformity to the general principles of the constitution
as regards labor; i. e., minimum wage, the legal eight-hour day, limitation
of night work, regulation of child labor, and protection of
female labor. (Art. 123, preamble.) In 1925 the Ifederal Chamber of
Deputies passed a minimum wage bill relating to the Federal District,
but it has not yet been approved by the Senate.> On the other
hand, the States of Nayarit, Puebla, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Vera Cruz,
Yucatan, Zacatecas, Sinaloa, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon,
Michoacan, Mexico, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Coahuila, Campeche, Colima,
Chihuahua, and Durango have enacted laws to establish the
commissions prescribed by the Federal constitution. These commissions,
which are composed of an equal number of representatives of
capital and of labor, with a representative of the Government as
chairman, fix the minimum wage? The State of Yucatan was the
first to enact such a law—on July 28, 1917—the State of Vera Cruz
following on January 14, 1918.
Vera Crusz.—The A of Vera Cruz was amended in 1925.4 It
states (art. 116) a wage-fixing principle in accord with that prescribed
in the Federal constitution. The minimum wage shall be
{Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia. May,
19 p. 94: “The Mexican constitution of 1917 compared with tlie constitution of
1857.”
2 Letter of Guillermo Palacios, of the Mexican Department of Labor, dated Feb. 4.
928.
' 2 International Labor Office. International Labor Review, Geneva, February, 1928,
p. 217: “ Labor legislation in Latin America,” by Moises Poblete-Troncoso.
“Ley del Trabajo del Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz-Llave y sus Reformas.
Jalapa-Enriquez, 1925.
