Over 400,000 garment workers in the garment hub of Karnataka in India have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020. The Worker Rights Consortium calls this the “worst wage theft” ever seen in the global garment industry, with the estimated total amount of unpaid wages exceeding US$58 million. With each month that goes by, the amount owed to the workers will continue to accumulate by more than $2 million.

Human rights advocates are sounding the alarm on a proposed “Foreign Agents Law” in El Salvador that would severely limit the work of independent civil society organizations and media outlets. Due to international pressure, the Legislative Assembly has placed the approval of the law on hold for now in an attempt to reach a consensus with the international community. Nevertheless, considerable concern remains about future drafts of the bill.

MSN’s latest Briefing Paper on Mexico’s labour justice reform assesses the process for legitimizing existing collective bargaining agreements, a four-year process initiated in 2019. All existing CBAs in Mexico must be subjected to a vote for the workers’ approval by May 1, 2023.

The 31-page report critically examines how the votes are organized and implemented, why most have been in favour of existing CBAs, how government oversight could be improved, and the need for greater transparency in public reporting.

To better understand and analyze the process for the legitimation of existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) required by Mexico’s labour justice reform, MSN compiled a database of all contract legitimation votes for the two-year period when the Secretariat of Labour and Social Welfare (STPS) was charged with overseeing the process. The research published by MSN also provides publicly available information that is not easily accessible on the government’s legitimation portal.