They propose expanding the criteria to classify accidents on the way to work

The Senate received a reform project to broaden the situations that can be classified as work accident on the way. In this way, those that occur when people change their usual route, or their starting point is from an address other than their home, would also be recognized as work-related incidents.

The proposal has already been turned over to the Labor and Social Welfare Commission for its analysis and is promoted by the senators of the Labor Party (PT). The proposed modification to article 474 of the Federal Labor Law (LFT) y al 42 de la Social Security Law (LSS) would expand from one to four the situations that can be classified as an occupational accident during the displacement of workers.

“It is necessary to make clear that labor and social security legislation for working people is limited in terms of recognizing the risks that people face every day as part of their work activity, which necessarily implies the possibility of suffering an accident during the transfer to or from the workplace ”, indicate the legislators Geovanna Bañuelos, Cora Cecilia Pinedo, Martha Cecilia Márquez and Joel Padilla in the proposal.

Currently, the LFT only recognizes that, in addition to the incidents that occur within the workplace, journeys from the worker’s home to his company or vice versa are classified as work accidents. However, the project proposes that they also include these three everyday situations:

• Transfers from home to the workplace and vice versa, even when the displacement is not direct but with a habitual alteration such as taking or picking up the children from school or nurseries.
• Incidents in the journey of a worker who moves to go successively to different work centers in which he provides his services.
• When the worker does not leave his own home for the workplace, but rather from a transitory home where he would have had an urgent need to spend the night for reasons or circumstances that must be fully accredited.

In addition to this, the reform proposes to include a new provision to complement the process: when an incident occurs on the way, the worker must immediately go to medical care.

“It is proposed to reform article 474 of the Federal Labor Law, as well as article 42 of the Social Security Law, to expressly recognize in the Law circumstances of the reality of the workers of our country, who to date have only been considered as exceptional circumstances to admit the work accident in Agreements of the Technical Council of the Mexican Institute of Social Security”, indicate the senators in the project.

Accidents at work in figures

According to data from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), in 2021 there were registered 109,512 work accidents in transfers and 273 deaths derived from these incidents.

Las most frequent causes of commuting accidents have occurred due to:

• falls
• motorcycle accident
• car accident
• Exposure to inanimate mechanical forces
• accident in public transport

Supermarkets, self-service stores, professional services, food sales, social security and food preparation are the economic activities where more accidents on the way have been reported.

Last year, the IMSS granted 5,318 permanent disabilities for incidents during commuting to work centers. Since 2015, each year more than 100,000 work accidents have been reported on the way, only with the exception of 2020 when 95,026 cases were registered, which is explained by the confinement measures adopted by some companies.