INVESTIGADORES
POBLETE Lorena Silvina
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
When the ILO Domestic Workers Convention Meets Latin American Regulatory Reforms. A Comparative Study of Argentina, Chile and Paraguay
Autor/es:
LORENA POBLETE
Lugar:
Toronto
Reunión:
Congreso; LLRN3 Labour Law Research Network Conference; 2017
Institución organizadora:
Labour Law Research Network & University of Toronto
Resumen:
In 2011, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted the Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention (C189) and Recommendation 201 (R201). These two documents lay out an innovative regulatory model for paid domestic work, establishing the following fundamental principles: freedom of association; the abolition of child and compulsory labor; protection from abuse, harassment, violence and discrimination; and labor and social rights, including limited working hours, monthly pay, a minimum wage, daily and weekly rest periods, annual leave, probation periods, termination of employment, and access to social security. Since the Domestic Workers Convention was approved, twenty-three countries have ratified it, including eleven in Latin American. This can be attributed to the interest in regulating such an important sector in the region and to the activism of domestic worker organizations in these countries. In Latin America, paid domestic work constitutes nearly 40 percent of the worldwide total, and is one of the principal forms of women's labor market participation: 26.6 percent of working women in the region are domestic workers (ILO, 2013). Undeclared employment is the norm in this sector, which means that labor rights do not apply and workers have no access to social benefits. When Convention 189 was starting to take shape, Latin American domestic worker organizations played an important role by supporting the international initiative and thereafter promoting the ratification within their respective countries as well. Although nearly a dozen countries in Latin American have ratified Convention 189, only Argentina, Chile and Paraguay have introduced comprehensive modifications to their national legislation since its approval. From a comparative approach, the aim of this article is to analyze the role played by Convention 189 on regulatory reforms, focusing on the law-making practices of the three countries in question. Was the convention a model to follow or a framework to adapt to local contexts, an ideal to protect or a catalyzer for ongoing regulatory reforms? To answer this question, the legislatives disputes over how to introduce the rights from Convention 189 and Recommendation 201 in Argentina, Chile and Paraguay will be analyzed. The empirical material utilized for this study includes labor legislation covering paid domestic work, national labor codes, and congressional records of all three countries. In order to provide a detailed comparison of the three cases, the focus will be on two fundamental but controversial aspects: establishing a maximum number of working hours and defining the salary components of domestic workers.