Revolutionary Promise

Mexico's revolution finally caught up last week with a promise made long ago to industrial workers. The constitution written in 1917 calls for capital to share its profits with labor. The rhetoric was impressive, but the constitution was vague on precisely how to go about it. Over the years, labor and management could never agree on a plan. In 1961 Mexico's Congress approved a constitutional amendment--later ratified by a majority of Mexico's 29 states--giving the government power to force a settlement. Now outgoing President Adolfo Lopez Mateos has signed the profit-sharing amendment into law.

Under the plan, a committee composed equally of management, labor and government representatives will determine what share of each company's profits should be passed on to the workers. Some 80% of Mexico's nonagricultural industries, both local and foreign owned, will be affected--but the result will not be a dramatic switch away from capitalism. Mexico has too many unemployed for employees to have the upper hand; even a regime that proclaims itself revolutionary has no desire to interfere too much with a profitable economy. The complex profit-sharing formula takes into account productive capacity, stockholder dividends, reinvested capital, interest, taxes and a dozen other factors. After all these deductions and allowances, a worker could get as much as a month's extra salary a year. Most will get less.

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