Documents Latin America 134 results

"This article takes as its starting point the fundamental changes in the past two to three decades in labour market institutions and processes in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The article examines two critical forces in the evolution and development of employment relations in many of these countries: the transformation from dictatorship to democracy and the globalization of national economies. The author provides an outline of the forces at play and their implications for employment relations; it considers public policy responses and their effect on workers and employers' organizations. It then examines the changing nature of collective bargaining, the most critical benefit of unionization. Finally, the article discusses the role of national-level social dialogue and its contribution to social and economic policy making."

"The Socio-Labour Declaration is the legal instrument that protects fundamental labour rights within Mercosur and its Member States legal orders. Its 2015 revision enhanced quantitively and qualitatively the rights enshrined therein. Relying upon recent literature on Latin American regional integration, this article considers the complex institutional and legal framework in which the Declaration has been adopted and implemented. It examines how the intergovernmental character of Mercosur has shaped the legal content of the Socio-Labour Declaration. The institutional context of the Declaration requires the active cooperation and intervention of both regional and national actors. This article explores how Mercosur bodies have taken advantage of the flexible institutional framework to implement the Declaration through regional plans and policies. It also analyses the contrasting enforcement roles of the national executive and legislative powers, characterized by their timidity, and the judicial activism that is essential to consider the Declaration as a justiciable instrument. The article concludes that the Socio-Labour Declaration is a crucial instrument in protecting workers' rights in this trade bloc, and that the 2015 revision introduced substantial improvements that may provide the legal basis for future judgments, and regional and national labour laws reforms."

"This article examines how the informal sector, as a group of potential ‘free riders' for public welfare goods, relates to individual social policy preferences in low- and middle-income countries. The exclusion hypothesis proposes that a large informal sector lowers the preferences from formal workers and the middle- and high-income groups for social services to be provided by the state, and raises these groups' preferences for public welfare goods to become club goods. In contrast, the prospect hypothesis argues that formal workers, particularly the middle-income group, ally themselves to the informal sector to insure against the risk of future employment in informality. The study examines individual preferences for the provision of pensions and health care by either the state or private enterprises. The two competing hypotheses are tested with a hierarchical model using survey data from Latin America for 1995, 1998 and 2008. The findings offer support for the exclusion hypothesis."