Mérida, Yucatán — Walmart and Bodega Aurrerá employees have declared a work stoppage in Mérida and Motul on Saturday.
Workers complain that they have been shorted under profit-sharing requirements. They say they have received only between 180 and 400 pesos, when, according to their lawyers, they each should have received at least 1,000 pesos.
Most established companies in Mexico are required to declare profits each year and share a portion of them as an employee benefit.
Ricardo Béjar Herrera, federal delegate of the Labor Secretariat in Yucatán, said his agency is monitoring companies to remind them to comply.
He indicated that the number of employees that have come to the Federal Attorney’s Office of Labor Defense (Peofedet) this year is large. More than half of local companies have not yet deposited their profits or have declared no profits for 2016.
Companies that do not comply by May 31 can be sanctioned by the state from 250 to 5,000 times the minimum wage, he said.
The extent of Saturday’s work stoppage was not explained.
Last week, disgruntled workers stood in front of a Walmart in Playa del Carmen, saying they will remain “as long as necessary”.
Aside from fair profit sharing, workers demanded to be treated with more dignity. They say they are treated like “slaves” when they are instructed to wash floors and similar chores outside their job description, but without extra pay.
With information from Sipse
