The Different Meanings of Formalisation. Experiments from the South: the Case of Argentina

POBLETE, LORENA

Berlin

Seminario; Prekarisierungsprozesse in formellen und informellen Arbeitsmärkten Lateinamerikas; 2023

Lateinamerika-Intitut Frei Universität Berlin

Informality is a structural feature of the labour market in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. Historically, in Argentina, at least one-third of people perform so-called informal activities. During the 1990s, the informality rate rose to thirty-five per cent, climbing to forty-five per cent in 2002, after the economic crisis in 2001. Nowadays, as the result of various formalisation policies, the informality rate has decreased. However, thirty-four per cent of the working population can still be considered informal workers. Since 1991, Argentinian legislators have introduced many laws seeking to formalise the situation of these workers. Thus, formalisation has become an important issue for legislation. However, the rationale underpinning this process of formalisation changed during this period. Between 1991 and 2001, in accordance with the neoliberal policies that characterised the decade, formalisation and flexibility were considered part of the same equation. All the legislation enacted under the auspices of the Labour Reform initiated in Argentina in the 1990s promotes labour flexibility in classical ways: short-term contracts, part-time jobs, internships, and different kind of subcontracting arrangements like temporary employment agencies or the promotion of self-employment. Since 2004, with the so-called counter Labour Reform (Goldin, 2012), formalisation has been used as a way to expand social protection. In line with the approach of the ILO, the main goal is to provide decent work to all workers.While the reasons for formalisation are clearly different in the two periods, the way in which formalisation was conceived and implemented under labour law is quite similar. This paper seeks to analyse—from a socio-historical perspective—the different regulatory responses to informality adopted in Argentina since the 1990s. Analysing changes in labour law, social security norms, tax regulations, and congressional debates, this research assesses different experiments in formalising the situation of precarious workers such as wage-earners working at small businesses, own-account workers and domestic workers. These experiments introduced some regulatory innovations and novel enforcement mechanisms.The first experiment addressed own-account workers on the informal labour market and small business employers and wage-earners. Thus, the legal category of ‘self-employed’ was reshaped to include not only liberal professions but also unqualified own-account workers with low incomes. The second experiment aimed to formalise paid domestic work. Using different strategies, the state strove to implement new regulations that would give domestic workers the same rights as all workers.