Mexico: without government aid, companies are told to negotiate with employees to curb impact of the Covid-19 crisis

“We have done away with the old counter-cyclical measures that only increased inequality and yielded wealth for some,” Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (of the left leaning Morena party) said on Sunday evening. He highlighted once again the government’s flagship construction projects as well as its support for small businesses, against a backdrop of budgetary orthodoxy that is asserted like a mantra. In the face of the economic crisis provoked by the coronavirus outbreak, the president is not planning a specific aid programme for businesses. The Mexican head of state only went as far as thanking companies for “voluntarily bringing their business to a halt, while maintaining jobs and their workers’ salaries”. Reactions on the part of businesses did not take long to arrive.