Meeting the Challenges of Industrial Restructuring: Labor Reform and Enforcement in Latin America

Abstract

Despite a strengthening of collective labor rights in Latin America over the last 15 years, most labor movements in the region have lost power because neither the content nor the enforcement mechanisms associated with the labor reforms fully took into consideration the challenges presented by economic restructuring. Reforms facilitating union formation did not strengthen unions but instead increased union fragmentation. Collective bargaining structures did not respond to the exigencies of international outsourcing; and the initial round of reforms in the 1990s did not contemplate the need to strengthen labor law enforcement mechanisms at a time when heightened international competition created a need for greater state vigilance of labor standards. Recent reforms or proposed reforms hold more promise for labor, but truly union-friendly labor relations regimes require deeper changes. A review of several Latin American cases is followed by a closer examination of Brazil and El Salvador. M ost scholars concur that globalization has not engendered an unambiguous decline in the protective role of the state. Notably, scholars of Latin American politics have argued that the state did not abandon its legal protections of organized labor; most collective labor law reforms in Latin America have been "union-friendly" (Bronstein 1995;Cook 1998;Córdova 1996;Murillo and Schrank 2005). This is partly because neoliberal economic reforms often coincided with processes of democratization that restored or deepened labor rights. It also is the result of international activist pressure and domestic coalitions between labor unions and labor-based political parties (Murillo and Schrank 2005).The aforementioned literature has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the transformation of employment relations in Latin America. It has rectified the misperception that labor law reform was a one-way affair in which employers and neoliberal governments pushed through their free market agenda unopposed. This literature highlights the role of national and international labor actors and their allies and reveals their capacity to influence reform processes. Yet now,

Unions and Economic Performance in developing countries: case studies from latin america

“…As described by Murillo (2000), Murillo and Schrank (2005), Anner (2008) and O'Connell (1999), the aftermath of the debt crisis, the return to democracy, economic reform and subsequent union friendly reforms transformed the role unions had in the labor market. Unions across the region had to adapt to a more flexible labor market, transitioning from a state-union to a firm-union relationship.…”

“…Although policies were implemented to favor more flexible labor markets, a series of union-friendly reforms were also adopted during the 1980s and 1990s (Murillo and Schrank 2005). Such reforms were insufficient to strengthen the role of unions as bargaining agents, fragmenting further an already weakened institution (Anner 2008).…”

“…According to Anner (2008), the market-oriented reforms weaken unions by eliminating protectionist policies, reducing the public sector, and contributing to the growth of informal labor. 6 The union-friendly reforms were limited and unable to counteract the increasing employment flexibility, and were incapable of providing adequate protection and enforcement systems from anti-union discrimination.…”

Pathways to Enforcement: Labor Inspectors Leveraging Linkages with Society in Argentina

“…Domestic political coalitions and legacies from authoritarian periods proved to have as much, if not more, of an effect on domestic legislation than the advocacy of international organizations to liberalize labor markets. Although studies of policymaking were important corrections of the view of convergence around deregulation, they were incomplete because regulatory changes often failed to translate into practices in the labor market (Anner 2008). For example, half of the workers in Latin America are in the "informal" sector, meaning that they do not benefit from many protections of labor law (ILO 2008).…”

Complementarities and continuities in the political economy of labour markets in Latin America

“…Historically, several other causes, including levels of enforcement, contributed to the emergence of contemporary patterns of informality. For an update on these debates, see Berg et al 2006, Anner 2008, and Piore and Schrank 2008 …”