Labour Law in Latin America: Some Recent (and not so Recent) Trends

Abstract

This paper provides a survey of developments in Latin America labour law and industrial relations over the last twenty-five years, while noting that Latin America is far from homogeneous. Whereas the erosion of labour law protection during the neo-liberal market reforms was a significant pattern in countries such as Colombia, Chile (under Pinochet), Peru (under Fujimori) or Argentina (under Menem), a number of other countries, including the Dominican Republic, El Salvador or Venezuela have strengthened labour-friendly law. The paper highlights the fact that the state grip on trade union activity has diminished in countries like Brazil and Chile, but not in Argentina and Mexico. The paper analyses the labour law changes in the transition to democracy in a number of countries, particularly Chile. The author notes that the scope of labour law has narrowed, with an increasing number of workers in non-wage forms of employment without social security, totalling 40% in the region as a whole, with peaks of 80% in Ecuador and Peru. Unionization rates are low, as exemplified in the case of Chile, where despite the return to democracy less than 15% of wage-earning workers are unionized. In most Latin American countries trade unions are enterprise-based with the notable exceptions of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The situation is worse in countries with endemic violence like Colombia or Guatemala, where trade union activists risk assassination by death squads. This explains the high number of complaints lodged with the International Labour Organization (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association, as workers cannot reasonably expect their trade union rights to be enforced by the local authorities.