Labour institutions and the effectiveness of traditional trade union recruitment strategies in Argentina

ADRIANA GOLDSCHVARTZ (MARSHALL)

Manchester, Reino Unido

Workshop; Trade Unions, Recruitment and Organisation: an International Perspective; 2009

European Work and Employment Research CentreUniversity of Manchester

In Latin American countries unionization has only seldom been studied from an industrial relations/labour economics perspective and, with a few exceptions, even the most basic data tend to be sparse, occasional and unreliable. Crucial issues such as union density, differential propensities to unionize, motives to join and not to join unions, or trade union recruitment strategies have been analyzed only exceptionally. The underdevelopment of this field of research contrasts sharply on the one hand with the proliferation of studies on unionization in other regions where appropriate information is available, and on the other with the vast literature on union-state and inter-union political relations within Latin America. In this context, we undertook a research project on union affiliation in Latin America countries, focusing mainly in the case of Argentina. This project involved research at several levels: a) The comparative study of the historical trajectories of union density in three countries - Argentina, Chile and Mexico, using the comparative method to highlight the role of played labour institutions in explaining unionization levels and trends. b) The analysis of the impact of changes in the employment structure and in labour regulation on union density specifically in Argentina. c) Research on the determinants of unionization rates through an inter-regional study within Argentina, that considered compositional effects derived from differential employment structures, and the influence of the labour market situation and of political/ideological factors (in this case, the role of regulations was not studied, given that legal labour regulation is the same throughout the country) d) The study of differential propensities to unionise following the tradition in the field. e) Research on union recruitment strategies, based on interviews to union leaders and union materials including union web sites. f) The analysis of motives to join and not to join unions, based on survey data. The presentation to this workshop deals with the case of Argentina. First, union density trends, and the factors, in particular labour institutions, that contribute to explain them are discussed. Then, results on union recruitment strategies are reported in greater detail. In any case, throughout the presentation some results from research in the other areas mentioned at the outset are described in passing whenever pertinent to strengthen the arguments.