Will there be a double bonus in 2024? This is what we know about the initiative of the Mexican Congress

( Spanish) – The proposal to increase the payment of the bonus, one of the most anticipated compensations for workers in Mexico each year, was recently taken up in Congress after the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) presented a new initiative. The draft joins more than a dozen related initiatives that remain pending approval.

The latest initiative The draft decree seeks to increase the bonus, which until now is equivalent to 15 days of work, to 30 days, thereby modifying the first paragraph of article 87 of the Federal Labor Law.

“An improvement in the productivity of workers must be accompanied not only by an increase in their salary, but also with a decent and fairer bonus,” said representative Gabriela Benavides Cobos, of the PVEM, when presenting the proposal in the current legislature at the beginning of October.

Currently the proposal is pending to be discussed in the Labor and Social Welfare Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, in accordance with the Legislative Information System.

Since the last legislature there are more than ten initiatives pending approval related to the reform of article 87 of the Federal Labor Law which establishes the following: “Workers will have the right to an annual bonus that must be paid before December 20, equivalent to at least fifteen days of salary.”

In February 2024, the Senate’s Labor and Social Welfare Commission approved an initiative promoted by Morena senator Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, which also proposes that remuneration be raised from 15 to 30 days. The decree is pending discussion in the Second Legislative Studies Commission to be approved.

In Mexico, this benefit has not changed significantly since 1975 and is low unlike other countries in Latin America, according to Gómez Urrutia.

“In several Latin American countries, remuneration is 30 days of salary or 12% of the remuneration obtained during a year worked,” reads the project presented by the Morenista.

In ArgentinaFor example, the Annual Complementary Salary is divided into two payments: a half bonus in June and another in December. “Each half bonus corresponds to 50% of the highest monthly remuneration received by the worker within each of the semesters,” according to the Government of that country.

In Colombia The bonus is known as “premium” and is also divided into two payments: the first in June and the second in the first twenty days of December, according to the Colombian Ministry of Labor. It corresponds to 30 days of salary per year worked.

The proposal to increase the bonus payment in Mexico joins others related to labor matters that do not end up advancing in Congress. One of them is the reduction in the working day that has remained frozen since 2023 in the Chamber of Deputies, despite the fact that the initial opinion of this reform was approved in April of last year and that the issue has gone through discussion forums.

Upon taking office as president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum promised—as part of her 100 government commitments—to achieve, at some point during her six-year term, reduce the work week from 48 to 40 hours.

According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), workers from Mexico and Chile are the ones who worked the most hours in 2023 within that block, with around 42 hours per week per person.

In contrast, there is the recent approval of the so-called “chair law”, a reform to the Federal Labor Law that recognizes the right of workers to take a break in a seat with a backrest during their work day.