LatinNews Daily Report - 18 September 2012

POLITICS| Calderón’s labour reform discussed by congress. On 17 September Mexico’s senate began to examine a new labour reform proposal submitted by the outgoing president Felipe Calderón, which he hopes to approve before he hands over power to President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto on 1 December next. The proposal has been criticised by deputies from the opposition leftist coalition, Movimiento Progresista, on concerns that it will undermine the country’s labour unions by, among other things, forcing them to make public their financial accounts and demanding the introduction of free, direct and secret ballots to elect union leaders. Calderón’s ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and Peña Nieto’s Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), respectively the second and first largest parties in congress,  have agreed to work together to push through the reform proposal which calls for constitutional amendments and so requires a two-thirds congressional majority for approval. The coordinator of the technical commission in charge of analysing the draft proposal, Blanca Alcalá (PRI), said that the commission had agreed to expedite the bill’s introduction to the plenary.