Cambios en la capacidad del Estado para enfrentar las violaciones de las normas laborales: los talleres de confección de prendas de vestir en Buenos Aires

Developing the capacity for states to enforce labor law is a key challenge to regulating decent work. Dominant accounts of state capacity, however, suggest that the principal components of state enforcement capacity are relative stable and, consequently, difficult to reform in the short-term. This article traces the arc of enforcement in the garment industry of Buenos Aires from 2001-2009. In the beginning of the period, there was little reaction from the state to extreme violations of labor law. Then, in 2006, enforcement increased drastically and was sustained for nearly two years. After 2008, however, enforcement levels dropped once again. Why did the state’s capacity to respond to widespread violations of labor laws in the garment industry change so dramatically over just a few years? In contrast with arguments that focus primarily in the stable organizational features of the bureaucracy, this article shows that a key, and often overlooked, component of capacity is the ability of labor inspectors to mobilize resources from society for enforcement. Since this ability is contingent on the structure of state-society linkages, it tends to be highly unstable and it shifts as political coalitions change. This finding suggests that developing a better understanding of the formation of state-society linkages can lead to new opportunities for regulators to promote decent work, even in places where inspectorates are highly constrained.Spain. National Research CouncilAndrew W. Mellon FoundationMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for International Studie

Co-enforcing Labor Standards: The Unique Contributions of State and Worker Organizations in Argentina and the United States

Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between regulations on the books and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused attention on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street-level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contributions of worker organizations and, as a result, overlook opportunities for co-enforcing labor standards, a key element of labor inspection. By contrast, we develop a framework to analyze the relationships between worker organizations and state regulators that underpin co- enforcement. We ground this framework empirically in comparative cases, set in Argentina and the United States, presenting two cases of co-enforcement in highly different institutional contexts. By doing so, we seek to illuminate key attributes of labor inspection and guide attempts to enhance enforcement by forging partnerships between regulators and worker organizations

Reinforcing the State: Transnational and State Labor Regulation in Indonesia

Research on global programs to regulate labor standards has emphasized interactions between transnational and state regulatory institutions. If transnational initiatives can make state institutions more relevant, they have the potential to reinforce, rather than displace, state labor regulation. Through a study of the Indonesia-based program of a leading initiative to improve working conditions in the garment industry, Better Work, this article identifies the conditions under which transnational regulations reinforce domestic ones. Drawing on two case studies comparing regulations governing fixed-term contracts and minimum wage renegotiations in four Indonesian districts, the authors find that reinforcement is likely when two conditions jointly occur: unions mobilize to activate state institutions, and transnational regulators have support to resolve ambiguities in formal rules in ways that require firms to engage with constraining institutions. The authors further test the findings through a quantitative analysis of factory participation in state-supervised wage renegotiations. The findings reveal opportunities and constraints to designing global programs that can both improve factory-level standards and support the functioning of state labor market institutions.Sloan School of ManagementInternational Labour OrganizationNational Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Program (Grant 1122374

Global Purchasing as Labor Regulation: The Missing Middle

Do purchasing practices support or undermine the regulation of labor standards in global supply chains? This study offers the first analysis of the full range of supply chain regulatory efforts, integrating records of factory labor audits with purchase order microdata. Studying an apparel and equipment retailer with a strong reputation for addressing labor conditions in its suppliers, we show that it persuaded factories to improve and terminated factories with poor labor compliance. However, we also find that purchase orders did not increase when labor standards improved. If anything, factories whose standards worsened tended to see their orders increase. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this “missing middle” in incentives for compliance appears unrelated to any cost advantage of noncompliant factories.Instead, lack of flexibility in supplier relationships created obstacles to reallocating orders in response to compliance findings

Politics of labor and environmental regulation in Argentina

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 218-231).How can states with weak and politicized bureaucracies enforce labor and environmental regulations? Through a study of subnational variation in Argentina, this dissertation develops a framework to explain why bureaucrats are able to enforce regulations in some cases and not others. The framework focuses on two factors: the strength of linkages between bureaucrats and civil society organizations, and the level of administrative capacity in the bureaucracy. Strong linkages can facilitate routinized resource sharing and the construction of pro-enforcement coalitions, and administrative capacity determines whether bureaucrats passively or strategically use societal resources. By explaining variation in patterns of enforcement that are obscured by existing approaches, this research opens up new possibilities for crafting strategies to strengthen regulatory institutions. The dissertation draws on data collected during sixteen months of field research, including over 250 semi-structured interviews and an original survey of labor inspectors.by Matthew Amengual.Ph.D

Pollution in the Garden of the Argentine Republic: Building State Capacity to Escape from Chaotic Regulation

Environmental regulation in middle-income and developing countries is often viewed with high degrees of pessimism. Although many countries have adopted protective laws, violations are widespread and institutions are weak. This paper analyzes the puzzle of shifting patterns of environmental regulation in Argentina, a country with widespread institutional weakness. Most regulators in Argentina take a firefighting approach, acting only when skirmishes emerge between communities and firms. Amidst regulatory chaos, improvements in the environmental performance of firms are few, and noncompliance remains the norm. However, in the province of Tucumán, the pattern of regulation shifted, and officials began to systematically enforce regulations. This paper traces shifts in patterns of enforcement back to broad pressures that provoked industry and environmentalists to support increases in the internal and external components of state regulatory capacity. The analysis uncovers political dynamics that can contribute to strengthening the institutions necessary for sustainable development.Ford FoundationLatin American Studies Associatio

Flexibility with accountability : an experiment in environmental governance

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-177).Command and control environmental regulation has been under attack from all sides for some time. In Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources is experimenting with an alternative form of environmental governance. This new program uses cooperative agreements to provide flexibility to firms in exchange for "superior environmental performance." The program attempts to change norms of adversarial and rule driven regulation, to norms of cooperative and flexible regulation. To maintain democratic accountability, firms that take part in the program are required to create a group of interested community participants. This thesis explores regulatory relationships within this program and under command and control through three case studies. These case studies reveal that flexibility can provide opportunity for greater environmental performance and that bottom up participation can provide a measure of democratic accountability. However, this democratic accountability was compromised by lack of access to expertise among participants, lack of clarity in roles, and difficulty handling conflict. The difficulties faced in this program highlight the need for the state to take a proactive role even when moving away from command and control. Nevertheless, these cases show potential for a shift towards cooperation in regulation through opening spaces for firms, regulators, and communities, to engage in deliberation.by Matthew Amengual.M.C.P

Pathways to Enforcement: Labor Inspectors Leveraging Linkages with Society in Argentina

Regulations essential for improving labor standards are often ignored to the detriment of workers. In many countries, the agencies charged with enforcement lack resources and are subject to political interference. How can inspectors in flawed bureaucracies overcome these barriers and enforce labor regulations? In this article, based on case studies of subnational variation in Argentina, the author develops a theory to explain enforcement in places with weak and politicized labor inspectorates. The framework focuses on two factors: the strength of linkages between bureaucrats and allied civil society organizations, and the level of administrative resources in the bureaucracy. Linkages facilitate routinized resource sharing and the construction of pro-enforcement coalitions, and administrative resources determine whether bureaucrats use societal resources passively or strategically. By identifying pathways to enforcement that are obscured by dominant approaches to studying labor inspection, this research opens up new possibilities for crafting strategies to improve labor standards.Andrew W. Mellon FoundationMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for International StudiesSocial Science Research Council (U.S.) (International Dissertation Research Fellowship Program

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects