Labor Reform and its Economic Foundations in a Historical Perspective

Abstract

This Works analyzes the economic foundation that motivated the presentation of a new Project of labor reform during the government of Argentinean President Mauricio Macri. For that, the article employs a historical perspective through the reconstruction of the transformations suffered by the labor legislation, specifically by the working contract law, which is the one that rules almost all of the labor agreement. The article also tackles the evolution of the labor relationships in the last decade and the initiatives of Argentinean entrepreneurship of achieving more favorable conditions for more flexible use of the workforce. The analysis shows that the labor reform is part of a mid-term strategy for improving the conditions for capital accumulation in Argentina, including an increase in the exploitation of the workforce. The methodology employed is based not only on the qualitative analysis of the legislation sources but also quantitative analysis of the national and worldwide statistical information. Several types of sources are used for that, such as labor legislation, agreements and covenants of different historical periods, national and international statistic series, and contributions made by other authors.