Workers' positional power: an input-output relations study

DEBORAH NOGUERA

CABA

Conferencia; International School and Conference on Network Science; 2023

Network Science Society

This paper analyzes the structure of intersectoral relations in the Argentine economy, through network analysis tools. The research question focuses on the notion of positionality and how it can explain power relations between capital and labor. Economic sectors hold a specific position in the production network, which give rise to a particular structure whose topological characteristics express the positional dimension of union bargaining power. The complex network theory concept that captures different aspects of a node's position is centrality. Then we can operationalize the concept of structural power using these measures.Main results can be summarized in: (1) the distribution of positional power is asymmetric between sectors and that implies an asymmetric distribution of sectoral wages; (2) positional power is relevant to explain distributive conflict dynamics.The main contribution is twofold: (1) we propose an alternative way to measure the workers' bargaining power, by operationalizing it through complex networks approach; (2) we provide empirical evidence (at the national level) about the relationship between the workers' structural power and the sectoral wage distribution.