The first Chamber of Mexico’s Supreme Court recently published in the Judicial Weekly of the Federation(Semanario Judicial de la Federación) a binding holding in regard to labor matters number 2a./J.137/2009 underthe heading Overtime. Use of full regular daily salary as a required basis for calculation. In this regard,Mexico’s highest court held that a literal, historical and systematic interpretation of various articles of the FederalLabor Law, providing that full salary as set forth in article 84 of the Law, which includes payments made fordaily labor, bonuses, commissions, payment in kind and any other amount or concept paid to an employee is whatmust be used as a basis for calculating overtime. The above is based on a regular work day and the salaryreceived by an employee for the first eight hours, or the period corresponding to their regular work day, thatresults from dividing the weekly, bi-weekly or monthly salary according to the corresponding number of days.This does not mean, according to the Supreme Court’s opinion, that the calculation must include items such asholiday bonus pay, vacation bonus pay, or similar payments that are not paid in an ordinary and systematic formevery pay period, but instead only those amounts that are received as compensation for the normal work hours.
