The development of labour law in Latin America

Abstract

After the theoretical effort aimed at identifying an initial basic and elementary idea of Labour Law, the article proposes to characterize Latin American Labor Law as a "particular idea" of Labour Law. To do so, the development of labour legislation in the region is examined, its first manifestations and the most widespread features in its conception. In this task, its belonging to the continental legal system is pointed out, its condition as an influenced but not transplanted legal system, its codification tendencies and its constitutionalization processes, together with some of its shortcomings; among them, the widespread informality of the links and a certain distance between the norms that are sanctioned and the reality that is the subject of regulation. Finally, particular attention is paid to the regulation of collective labor relations and its tendencies either towards imposed decentralization or towards imposed centralization. Later, attention is paid to the processes of recovery of the region's democracies and, in that framework, to the processes of reform - later, to their persistence or to their ebb or to the installation of new reformist instances. To conclude, attention is paid to the times to come and to the most immediate trends of transformation of the labour system.