On March 15, 2022, the Chamber of Senators ratified Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization (“ILO”) 190 on workplace violence and harassment, which aims to force employers to establish preventive and disciplinary measures to eradicate any type of physical and/or psychosocial violence that workers may suffer for the provision of their services.
The most relevant points of the Agreement are:
An inclusive approach, with a gender perspective;
Global definitions regarding violence, harassment and discrimination based on gender issues;
Control of the application of sanctions, means of prevention against acts of violence and repair of damages; y
Sensitization to the problem of workplace violence and harassment;
The Convention will be deposited with the ILO and once its general director registers it, it will enter into force the following year as a Mexican regulatory framework and must be published by decree in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
The purpose of the Agreement is to counter negative attitudes and behaviors for the free development of the person within the workplace. Companies will have to create or update their policies, protocols and mechanisms to develop a harmonious environment free of violence and harassment.
Currently, within the Mexican laws and regulations, there are already some current obligations that attend to the content of said Agreement, among which the following stand out:
The elaboration of a protocol in conjunction with the workers, for the prevention of discriminatory acts for reasons of gender, violence, harassment or sexual harassment, based on the Federal Labor Law in its article 132 section XXXI; and
The development of a policy and mechanisms for the prevention, monitoring and application of sanctions, based on the Official Mexican Standard NOM-035-STPS-2018, Psychosocial risk factors at work-Identification, analysis and prevention (“NOM035”) , which focuses on:
a) The prevention of psychosocial risk factors;
b) The prevention of workplace violence; Y
c) The promotion of a favorable organizational environment.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, through the federal labor inspection department, must ensure that said measures and obligations are applied in the work centers. In the event that the Secretariat, through the federal labor inspection directorate, finds irregularities and/or notices any type of non-compliance with respect to said provisions, it may impose fines that may vary from 50 to 5,000 UMAS for each possible non-compliance attributable to the employer, which is equivalent to an amount of $4,811.00 up to $481,100.00 pesos. It is important to note that the aforementioned amounts may increase depending on the number of breaches or omissions that can be detected.
In order to be prepared to comply with ILO Convention 190, we recommend that companies begin to observe the obligations in this same sense. We suggest starting with a list of obligations and compliances in order to determine the company’s current degree of compliance.
