The Center is a public body, decentralised from the Federal Public Administration, created on 6 January 2020, when the Mexican Congress issued the Organic Law of the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labour Registry.

It oversees the conciliation procedure between employees and employers on individual and collective matters under federal jurisdiction and registers nationally all collective bargaining agreements, official union contracts, internal labour regulation, and trade union organisations.

Even if the law took effect on 7 January 2020, the implementation of the Center occurred gradually, by the guidelines and handbooks issued by the Director of the Center and approved by the Governing Board.

The implementation of this Federal Conciliation and Labour Registry Center followed three stages. The first two stages have been completed, with the following states starting operations with local conciliation centres and offices of the Federal Centre for Conciliation and Labour Registration: Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, State of Mexico, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Zacatecas.

The third stage, due to be completed by May 2022 but has now been extended to October 2022, consists of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Jalisco, Mexico City, Michoacán, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Yucatan.

Lastly, on 20 September 2022, the Senate ordered Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mérida, and the capital, Mexico City, to align with other states.

The Federal Centre for Conciliation and Labour Registration has the following two main functions: (1) to register all collective bargaining agreements, internal regulations and union organisations, and any of their related administrative functions; and (2) to provide, at a federal level, the conciliation function as a mandatory requirement previous to the filing of a labour claim.

The local conciliation centres only exercise the pretrial conciliation function. They are not responsible for registering collective bargaining agreements, internal rules or union organisations.

Employers need to be aware that, from now, it is mandatory, before filing a lawsuit, to start this conciliation phase, which can last a maximum of 45 days. This reform created a mandatory pre-trial instance for the parties, which aims to fasten labour proceedings.