Global Focus on Collective Bargaining Coverage: Worker-Led Political Movements Spur Collective Barga

In Uruguay, a new government in 2005 immediately reinstated collective bargaining rights that had disappeared in the early 1990s.

In Brazil, a progressive political agenda is bringing about labor law reform and giving more workers access to the benefits of union representation and bargaining agreements. In fact, 36 percent of Brazil's workers today have bargaining rights as compared with only 12 percent in the United States.

Under Chile's new government, old subcontracting laws designed to thwart union membership have been modified, giving more workers a chance to be represented.

In each country, grassroots movements have elected new leaders who — while imperfect in their track records — are enacting rights that workers had lost long ago or never enjoyed at all.

"Their victories are proof that where working people with nothing to give but their voice and their energy and their passion stand together to build a new political movement, it can and will happen," CWA President Larry Cohen said.

What's happened in South America is not necessarily the script as labor unions would write it. But Teresa Casertano, Americas regional program director for the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, says there is indisputable progress being made, and workers are better for it.

Chile

In Chile, for instance, she described what had been "egregious subcontracting laws." A call center might have a thousand workers hired by a variety of contracting agencies that would replace the workers after three months. "The law was that you don't qualify for union membership until you've worked at a job more than three months," Casertano said.

While she said a new law "fell well short of labor's goals," it is expected to reduce the worst cases of subcontracting and is encouraging some employers to hire workers directly.

In Chile, the telecom union SINATE "has been able to organize several thousand members, when they really couldn't get much traction before. And they've bargained some new contracts," Casertano said.

Chile's president, Michelle Bachelet, is a single mother who has taken bold stands for equality and justice, including workers' rights. She has appointed women to 10 of 20 cabinet seats.

Uruguay

The tiny country of Uruguay historically had strong collective bargaining rights. But they virtually disappeared in the early 1990s when the government refused to convene the country's bargaining councils. President Tabare Vasquez, who ran on a platform of social justice, restored the councils as soon as he took office in 2005.

"Thousands and thousands of workers were able to rejoin unions and got bargaining agreements that applied across their sectors," Casertano said. The first round of bargaining in 2005 helped workers recoup lost wages, with a broader focus in bargaining since then. Last year, agricultural workers were included in negotiations for the first time, winning a minimum wage and eight-hour day. And many more workers are now on the books for social security and health care, after years of informal record-keeping and sub-contracting by some employers had denied them coverage.

Brazil

In Brazil, all formally employed workers are technically covered by collective bargaining agreements. Under the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, formal employment has risen to over 55 percent, an increase of 5 to 6 percent over four years. Casertano said that means more workers are getting social security, vacations and severance and the periodic advances that come with collective bargaining.

While there are still many limitations on bargaining rights in Brazil, wages, particularly, have improved significantly. Casertano said that before 2003, many annual raises failed to keep pace with inflation. By 2004, however, about 80 percent of collective bargaining agreements achieved wage increases equal to or above the inflation rate and that figure rose to 96 percent by 2006.

The advances in Brazil started by building a workers' party. While a new, viable party may be unlikely in the United States, Casertano said what workers have achieved through solidarity in South America should inspire workers here.

"Too many Americans believe that the only thing that talks in U.S. politics is money," Cohen added. "We proved them wrong in 2006 and we'll prove them wrong again this fall when we elect a pro-worker president and send true pro-worker majorities to both houses of Congress. When we do, the Employee Free Choice Act will be law and millions of hard-working Americans will finally have the right to a voice at work."