The Making of Law

William Suarez-Potts states that The Making of Law “is a history of the development of labor law in Mexico from 1875 to 1931” (p. 1). In truth, however, the volume stays closer to its title, which highlights the relationship between the Supreme Court and labor legislation in Mexico. Legal realism, the position that the law is what judges and judicial authorities do rather than the written text, was developed to understand US common law, and Suarez-Potts argues that it is the best stance to take in order to understand law in Mexico. To do this, Suarez-Potts focuses most of his analysis on the published legal opinions in Mexico’s Semanario Judicial de la Federación, Supreme Court case records, various secondary sources, and the published proceedings of the meetings that gave rise to Article 123 in 1917 and the 1931 federal labor code. The analysis is qualitative, as according to Suarez-Potts “quantification of the cases was not necessary” (p. 11).In the introductory chapter Suarez-Potts sets out the complexity of labor law in Mexico, looking at a case to which he later returns. Luis N. Morones, the 1920s labor leader turned government official, tried to reduce railway employment, which led to a railroad strike that he declared illegal. The Mexican Supreme Court declared the strike constitutional, which forced President Plutarco Elías Calles to create federal labor boards to rule on such matters. Suarez-Potts uses this to show that the Supreme Court matters in labor affairs, a persistent theme of the book.Chapter 2 discusses the legal rights of free labor embedded in the 1857 constitution, arguing that the federal judiciary had little impact on labor relations before 1910. Chapter 3 looks at industrial relations and the rights of labor during the Porfiriato. Like other authors, Suarez-Potts notes the increasing industrial unrest during this period, criticizing President Porfirio Díaz because he “failed to resolve the social question” (p. 88). In chapter 4, there is a thin discussion of what might have been considered labor laws during the late Porfiriato, the purpose of which seems to be to show that the labor legislation unveiled during the revolution had a nineteenth-century antecedent. The discussion is thin because there is so little legislation before 1910, while in contrast, there is so much afterward, so that it may be hard for the reader to find much of a connection.Chapter 5 mostly looks at the debates that led to Article 123 of the 1917 constitution and the limits on labor rights inherent in it. Suarez-Potts comments that “Mexican political leaders enacted most of the major elements of labor law as legislation between 1911 and 1931” (p. 110). This emphasis on political leaders reflects a book in which law and labor law both appear as part of state construction by political elites, something that happened to workers rather than something they participated in. The next chapter returns to the theme that judicial decisions mattered through the legal discussion of a couple of important cases in 1917 – 1924 in which the court supported rather than negated the authority of the labor boards established by the new labor laws. The following chapter takes up Supreme Court decisions in 1925 – 1931. As in the prior period, the Supreme Court upheld the authority of the new conciliation and arbitration boards. Suarez-Potts concludes that the court served “to legitimize positions adopted by employers, unions, and state authorities” (p. 217). The last substantive chapter describes the formal debates that led to the Federal Labor Law of 1931.Given Mexico’s long and deep legal traditions, there are hundreds of volumes in Spanish on labor law, its practice, and its history in the country. This extensive field invites three questions. First, to what degree is law in Mexico descended from the state as opposed to being contested terrain? Second, does law have the same meaning in Mexico as in the United States, and if not, what are the differences? Third, to what degree did conflicts between employers and workers shape the emergence of labor law, its interpretation, and its application?With regard to the first question, the sources employed by Suarez-Potts, mostly legal documents and commentary, force the book to adopt a statist approach to law. However, for the revolutionary period, it is possible that archival sources grounded in social, economic, and cultural processes might have yielded a less statist view, one in which the concerns and struggles of other protagonists shape legal outcomes. With regard to the second question, the book, by adopting the legal realist position that emanated from the study of US law, can register little difference between the United States and Mexico. Yet the nonlegal context that surrounds the application of law in Mexico — from massive noncompliance to threats and to bribes — is mostly not present in this volume. Finally, it is not within the confines of this book to explore the vast array of nonlegal sources on workers, unions, and labor conflicts. In fairness, it is doubtful that any single volume could do that. However, it suggests that this is a volume whose utility lies in its being deployed in combination with other studies of this period

Common law · Legislation · Political science · Sociology · Supreme court · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · Law · Political Dynamics in Latin America · Politics and Society in Latin America

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