Chile: congress approves a labor law reform that recreates industrial relations

Following sixteen months of legislative procedure amid much controversy, Chile’s congress has adopted its labor law reform. The country’s still to be enacted new Labor Code incorporates profound changes in terms of union representation, collective bargaining, and the right to strike. The opposition has lodged an appeal with the Constitutional Tribunal criticizing ‘the union monopoly’ that the labor law reform introduces.
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Controversy over collective rights and the new industrial relations model. A majority of Chile’s Congress members approved the new labor law reform following a full 465 days of legislative procedure. Some hours after the Chamber of Deputies gave its approval by 60 votes in favor and 40 against with six abstentions, the members of the Senate also ratified it by twenty-three votes to fifteen. The reform, which won Michelle Bachelet’s government overwhelming criticism including from her own Social

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