Box 3: Article 283(12) of the Mexican Federal Labor Act Indigenous workers in the rural economy are particularly vulnerable to labor rights violations, the lack of training on rights and entitlements being one reason. In Mexico, 2012 amendments to the Federal Labor Act have introduced a provision requiring employers to use interpretation services when rural workers do not speak Spanish. Mexico has also launched a specific program to disseminate information on the rights of daily agricultural workers through community leaders and local authorities.

Source: Federal Labor Act of Mexico, Art. 283(12) Table 4: Does the Law Allow an Employee to Bring a Claim for Employment Discrimination on Religious, Ethnic, Sexual Orientation, or Gender Identity Grounds in the Public and Private Sectors?

||Bulgaria|Mexico|Morocco|Netherlands|Tanzania|Vietnam|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Ethnic minorities|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|
|Religious minorities|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|
|Sexual orientation|ü|ü||ü|||
|Gender identity|ü|ü||ü|||

_Source_ : World Bank Equality Project.

Recently, the International Labour Organization highlighted a global trend in nondiscrimination legislation in the workplace that shifts the burden of proof to the employer in cases of alleged discrimination (ILO 2011b, x). The survey results show that Bulgaria, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Tanzania are in line with such international trends. In all four economies, once an employee has brought a claim for discrimination, the burden of proof shifts to the employer, who must demonstrate that discrimination did not take place. Vietnam’s new Civil Proceedings Code adopts a hybrid approach. According to the new law, the burden of proof shifts to the employer when the employer is the repository of the evidence or, in other words, holds the documentation related to the employment claim.<sup>64</sup> At present, Morocco has no similar forms of protection for its employees.

Discriminatory hiring practices, unfair labor treatment, and prejudicial attitudes toward certain minority groups may hinder their full participation in the labor market, wasting their potential and lowering the competitiveness of the economy. Survey results suggest that legislation in the field of nondiscrimination labor law is fairly well developed in all six economies. Interestingly, despite the fact that such economies have profoundly different legal traditions, they are adopting similar forms of enforcement mechanisms to implement the laws. Certainly, that trend is a reflection of the work of international organizations such as the International Labour Organization that have tirelessly worked for many years on the promotion of labor standards and harmonization of the law in that field. As mentioned, however, discrimination against minorities in the workplace is still a reality, which suggests that stronger enforcement mechanisms must be put in place to ensure equal opportunity in the labor market. Figure 3 shows that, as with the results of the surveys related to the previous indicators, the weakest body of law protecting access to the labor market is that related to LBGTI communities. In Morocco and Tanzania—where homosexuality is a crime—all existing protective legislation in the workplace applies only to ethnic and religious minorities.

> 64 Decree 92/2015/QH13 on Civil Procedures Code (2015), Art. 91(1)(b), effective July 1, 2016.

Anti-Discrimination Law and Shared Prosperity 21