Of Labor Inspectors and Judges: Chilean Labor Law Enforcement after Pinochet (And What the United States Can Do to Help)
Saint Louis University Law Journal, Vol. 54, p. 497, 2010
27 Pages Posted: 23 Jan 2011
Date Written: January 21, 2011
Abstract
The study of labor law enforcement in Latin America and the Caribbean has become increasingly important among academic researchers not insignificantly because many of the region's countries have free trade agreements (PTA) with the United States that incorporate a labor clause, or "side agreement" in the case of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), calling for each party to enforce its national labor laws, broadly defined to include both collective and individual rights. PTAs, except NAPTA, include further commitments in favor of promoting internationally recognized core labor rights. The stress on national enforcement in all of these FTAs, although criticized by some labor activists for being inadequate and ineffective, has spurred modest but important institutional modernization of some of the region's labor law enforcement bodies with some improvements in the enforcement of the labor laws.
Keywords: Labor Inspection, Latin America, Chile, Labor Courts, Comparative Labor Law
JEL Classification: K10, K31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation