The enforcement of labor rights is an important facet of the human rights of women workers, but the current state of enforcement in Mexico leaves much to be desired. Under federal law, Mexico’s Department of Labor and Social Welfare has a mandate to inspect all factories that supply both the international and domestic markets to ensure that they are meeting appropriate labor conditions. These issues include paid overtime, appropriate working hours, healthy and safe workplaces, discrimination and sexual harassment, among other issues.
However, the Department currently only employs 56 inspectors and, in 2018, they only conducted a few hundred audits country-wide. Additionally, it is alleged that audits conducted by the labor inspectorate pass facilities despite blatant violations. Further, it is alleged that the corruption endemic in other aspects of Mexican governance has also permeated the labor inspectorate. A representative from one NGO with whom we spoke reported that factories that have failed the state labor inspectorate have shut down their operations only to reappear under a new company – with the same owners - in a different state. If there is no detailed tracking mechanism maintained by the labor inspectorate, then it seems that this could be a deep-rooted risk in the social compliance landscape in Mexico.
In addition to the state audit landscape, many multinational brands, such as Disney and Nike, require their Mexican suppliers to submit to a social compliance conducted by a third party firm. We met with one such firm during our research in Mexico City. The key differences between private firm audits and those conducted by the state are the sheer number of them – 2,400 in 2018 – and a stricter interpretation of Mexican labor laws. One representative of these firms with whom we spoke mentioned several instances in which factories had passed the state inspectorate audit but had been failed by the private firm.
In order for increased adherence to social compliance standards at maquiladoras, there should be change both by the state. First, the Mexican government must build its labor inspectorate capacity by hiring more auditors. The labor inspectorate cannot fulfill its mandate until it has enough resources to complete audits of all maquiladoras each year. However, given the limited resources of government in general, it seems unlikely that this will happen quickly.
The potential for greater change in social compliance seems to lie with the multinational brands that source from Mexico. More multinational corporations
should require their suppliers to submit to third party audits, and those that do should strive to remain abreast of the particular labor risks in Mexican maquiladoras.
