In conjunction with our corporate practice, we advise clients on the labor, employment issues that arise in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, bankruptcies, and other changes in corporate ownership. These issues range across workforce restructuring, union successorship (causahabiencia), termination benefits, and benefits continuation. Such situations involve traditional labor issues under the Mexican Federal Labor Law; collective bargaining issues relating to changes in the enterprise and/or the workforce, including both decision bargaining and bargaining over the effects of certain entrepreneurial or employer decisions on represented employees; and both the setting of initial terms and conditions of employment in the case of acquisitions, and plant-closing and shutdown agreements in the case of divestitures and closings.
These transformations in business and with employing entities have implications in non-represented workforces (trabajadores de confianza) as well. For example, the parties to a transaction must take care that the transaction is structured in such a way as to preserve the flexibility to conduct the business in the manner that the purchaser intends and the allocation of liabilities and responsibilities between the parties is clearly and unequivocally expressed. Decisions about employee benefits must be made, whether the client is the purchaser or the seller. New businesses and start-ups require advance planning and the establishment of employment policies, systems, and benefits. Employers undergoing significant changes in the workforce must be sure to plan for and comply with the federal statute relating to advance notice of certain shutdowns and mass layoffs.
