Workers in Mexico: Urgent Need to Improve Working Conditions of Youth Emir Olivares Alons - La Jornada
go to original September 23, 2014

Mexico requires a comprehensive reform to drive better working conditions for young people, since this demographic is one of the least protected by modern labor laws. Almost seventy percent of working youths ages fifteen to twenty nine receive a salary of less than five thousand pesos per month [US$375], and more than sixty percent do not receive benefits.

José Antonio Pérez Islas, coordinator of Research Seminar on Youth (SIJ) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) indicated that the most important issue facing this sector of the country is a lack of opportunities.

In the context of The National Gathering of Youth Researching Youth - which was organized by SIJ and the Mexican Institute of Youth and took place recently at UNAM - the university academic asserted that it is necessary to have a comprehensive reform regarding the generation and transmission of knowledge, and at the same time, to create jobs that meet the employment parameters outlined by the International Labor Organization (the protection of workers’ rights and the provision of social benefits, among other things).

According to a research report by SIJ – which is available on the site - in Mexico there are almost twelve million young people engaged in a work activity. Of these, six out of ten are not under contracts that protect their physical and social wellbeing as much as their livelihoods.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Chris Brown

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico  -  on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx.

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