Management,the state and union-weakening practices in Chile: A case study approach of the dual and ambivalent role of the state in a process of democratisation

Abstract

The article analyses a range of union-weakening practices developed in three Chilean workplaces. The findings suggest the existence of an ambivalent employment relationship between employers and trade unions where an ongoing informal labour–management partnership simultaneously coexisted with de-collectivising strategies. The article argues that the Chilean state has aided employers in the implementation of such union-weakening practices through the labour legislation. Sixty-nine semi-structured interviews with trade union leaders, human resource managers and field experts inform this research. The legacy of previous forms of state intervention that countered the processes of democratisation is found to be essential in the use of de-collectivisation.

Keywords

Chile de-collectivising strategies industrial relations Latin America trade unions union-weakening

Introduction

Resistance from employers can be one of the major obstacles trade unions face when trying to advance power in the workplace. Such resistance often comes in the form of de-collectivising or union-weakening practices (Dundon et al., 2010; Gall and Dundon, 2013; Van den Broek and Dundon, 2010). The relevant literature has reviewed the practices implemented by employers against trade unions, with a commonality being their aim of reducing the influence of unions in the workplace (Gall and Dundon, 2013; Peetz, 2002). However, the majority of the existing literature has been developed in reference to industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom (see Dundon, 2002; Gall and Dundon, 2013), Ireland (see Dundon et al., 2006; Wilkinson et al., 2004), the United States (see Logan, 2006) and Australia (see Cooper et al., 2009; Peetz, 2002; Van den Broek, 1997). As a result, the topic does not seem to be much studied in Latin American contexts. Thus, this article focuses on the Chilean context, as an attempt to shed light on the new forms and shapes of de-collectivising strategies in less researched countries. Chile’s structural characteristics of firm-level unionism and significant income inequality have the potential to inform on a less-researched topic in the context of employment relations in Latin America.

Researching de-collectivising strategies in different settings can be relevant as national institutions, such as the state, have a fundamental role in being the guarantor and ensuring the establishment of rules and regulations that govern labour and employment relations (see Martínez Lucio and MacKenzie, 2017 for a discussion). However, the state may not necessarily function as is intended, which can explain why in some cases, as in the Chilean context presented in this article, the state can act in contradiction to its espoused principles. The work of Gamble (1994) on the United Kingdom under a right-wing government showed how whilst propagating ideas of the ‘free economy’, the state can develop a strong anti-union rhetoric and practice albeit within a formally democratic context. Increasingly within the context of neoliberalisation there are complex labour market deregulation policies in a host of contexts (Baccaro and Howell, 2011). The state can evolve and develop various strategies of union-weakening across time and these are not always one-off shifts or systematic leaps in policy but an incremental fine-tuning of state policy towards organised labour (MacKenzie and Martínez Lucio, 2014). Consequently, in terms of the employment relationship, it is possible that some governments use various agencies of the state to pursue union-weakening practices at specific times.

This article will argue that the Chilean state, embedded in a market-oriented context, has established an ambivalent relationship with organised labour and employers where, while promoting employment security, it has provided employers with a space in which to develop a sort of portfolio of union-avoidant practices. Such an ambivalent relationship may be directly attributed to the nature of the Chilean labour legislation born in the 1970s during the right-wing military dictatorship that emphasised individualisation of the employment relationship along with increasing flexibility and deregulation (Barrett, 2001; Duran, 2013; Feres, 2008). Furthermore, as the article will show, different forms of ‘regulation’ are utilised by employers at different times to weaken union voice creating a subtle but complex utilisation of the legal heritage of the Pinochet regime. Such a peculiarity of the Chilean context has the potential to offer new insights into the discussion of union-weakening practices in terms of their complex and ambivalent combinations.

The article is structured as follows. The first section presents the theoretical frameworks through which union-weakening practices will be addressed. The second section describes and compares the union avoidance strategies developed by three Chilean companies in the food-manufacturing sector, which represent examples of what appeared to be good employment relations and forms of dialogue between unions and employers. The third section discusses the implications of these practices for Chile’s industrial relations system. The article concludes with a discussion of the need to show how different trajectories within industrial relations run concurrently and present a challenge to the development of worker voice.

Theoretical frameworks for the study of union-weakening strategies

The first attempt at developing a framework for union-weakening practices was presented by Roy in 1980, who determined four common practices implemented by employers to diminish trade union power (i.e. ‘fear stuff’, ‘sweet stuff’, ‘evil stuff’, ‘fatal stuff’). These practices ranged from making threats against workers to actively campaigning against them (Roy, 1980). Dundon (2002: 236) enlarged this model by adding three union-weakening practices (i.e. ‘awkward stuff’, ‘tame stuff’, ‘harm stuff’) to the existing four. The added practices related to tactics of stonewalling, providing unusually good arrangements to influence workers against trade unions and blatant bypassing of unions. Gall and McKay (2001) later developed a model framing union-weakening practices as a dichotomy of aiming either to replace or suppress the trade union. The approach whereby employers replace a trade union is when they try to supplant the union’s role with other activities aiming to portray unions as unnecessary. In contrast, companies can suppress unions through the creation of an atmosphere of fear in the workplace. Companies may go so far as employing anti-union consultancy firms, holding meetings with workers to show them how the company’s financial performance can be negatively affected by unions, telephoning the workers’ families to inform them about the negative possibilities should a union be established in the workplace or even restructuring the company by splitting it into atomised units (see Logan, 2006 for further discussion). Although straightforward, Gall and McKay’s (2001) model may not be able to illustrate for all cases the complexity and even contradictory practices that employers often implement to limit union power (Dundon, 2002; Dundon et al., 2010). Hence the importance of a framework that offered a comprehensive analysis of the range of possibilities in de-collectivising workplaces.

Peetz’s (2002) framework presented the required comprehensive element for the assessment of de-collectivising practices, developing a model that offered nine different union-weakening categories. Such enlargement grasped the increasing complexity of union-weakening activities. In his article, Peetz (2002) explained how the actions of employers (i.e. the real dimension) could be combined with the different meanings of such actions (i.e. the symbolic dimension) and generate different union-weakening practices. In that way, there could be three sets of actions (e.g. relational methods, employment practices and informational methods) that could each have two (e.g. exclusivist and inclusivist) meanings or even a dual meaning. Despite the relevancy of this model in describing a wider range of de-collectivising practices, it is still important to consider the complexity of such activities and the role played by different institutional contexts. In this regard, there is the possibility that some de-collectivising activities may not be considered union-weakening in some contexts. Consequently, in order to understand how a context can influence the use of de-collectivising practices, the next section will focus on describing a rather prolific context for the emergence of union-weakening practices, Chile. As will be argued in this article, certain features of the country can explain the union-weakening notion of some practices.

The Chilean state, the system of industrial relations and the proliferation of de-collectivising strategies

Chile’s institutions and employment relations have a tendency towards a more marketised capitalism where labour legislation often aims at deregulation and flexibility (Duran, 2013; Duran and Kremerman, 2015; Ebenau, 2012). Paired with this, the country has a significant income inequality, marked primarily by a strong power imbalance between employers and workers (Contreras, 2003; Duran, 2013; Rodríguez and Ríos, 2009; Soto and Torche, 2004). As neoliberal values tend to be widespread in Chile and permeate the employment relationship, some employers may have a tendency to perceive workers’ organisations as problematic and uncooperative towards the companies’ objectives, which therefore implies that Chilean employers may not be, as a whole, sympathetic to the presence of trade unions in the workplace (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017; Henriquez, 2014). This can be reflected in the latest National Labour Survey (Dirección del Trabajo, 2015) which shows considerable levels of anti-union practices, where nearly half of the surveyed companies confirmed having a generally negative attitude towards trade unions and the right to freedom of association.

In addition to these issues, the academic literature has often portrayed the Chilean state as a static actor in the system of industrial relations (Barrett, 2001; Doniez, 2012; Feres, 2008; Gamonal, 2011), often being a rather ambivalent actor in the employment relationship (Bronstein, 2010; Cook, 1998; Frank, 2002; Haagh, 2002). Such ambivalence can be attributed to the origins of the existing labour law developed in 1979 during Augusto Pinochet’s right-wing military government (Barrett, 2001; Duran, 2013; Gamonal, 2011; Rodríguez and Ríos, 2009), which emphasised neoliberal values by curtailing workers’ collective rights and introducing much flexibility in the employment relationship (Durán-Palma et al., 2005; Vejar, 2012, 2014). At first, Pinochet implemented a repressive system where signs of collective action were prohibited (Campero and Cortazar, 1985; Cross and Blackburn, 2016; Riesco, 2009). Pinochet’s Labour Plan ‘restricted collective bargaining to the plant level, limited strike activity and coordination while instituting a host of measures to discourage unionization and the reconstitution of ties between organized labour and party politics’ (Clark, 2015: 208). In 1983, after growing opposition, Pinochet relaxed some of the control mechanisms over political parties and collective rights, allowing for a relatively more open yet still very constrained industrial relations system (Barrett, 2001; Frank, 2002). As a result, the parties that constituted Pinochet’s opposition grouped into the Coalition of Parties (Coalición por el NO in Spanish). This coalition attained the presidency and stayed in office during four successive governments over the next 20 years (Palacios-Valladares, 2010; Silva, 1995).

The period from 1990 onwards confronted the complex task of reorganising and strengthening all institutions previously disrupted (Aravena and Núñez, 2011; Silva, 1995). These governments were greeted by the public with great enthusiasm and high expectations, hoping that they could reduce the country’s inequality and restore some form of fairness in labour relations (Barrett, 2001; Frank, 2002; Vejar, 2012). The Workers’ United Centre (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile; CUT), an institution that was completely dismantled during the dictatorship and reconvened to support the 1988 plebiscite, was especially hoping for more participation at the national level and in the formulation and control of public policy (Frías, 2008). Yet, these governments requested moderation in the labour movements’ demands in order to transition smoothly into democracy (Frías, 2008; Haagh, 2002). After several efforts at regulating and reforming the employment relationship, the country’s labour legislation remained neoliberal at its core (Bronstein, 2010; Ffrench-Davis, 2010). Arguably, the four labour reforms conducted after the end of Pinochet’s regime have enhanced the ambivalence of the employment regulations. On the one hand, these forms of labour law appeared to enhance employment stability, protection of workers and of the structures of collective bargaining, yet on the other hand, the labour law included the implementation of various union-avoidance practices.

Recent studies have identified that Chilean employers tend to implement a range of union-weakening activities that intertwine with practices that support the presence of trade unions in the workplace. The few studies that exist on the topic have determined that the more frequent de-collectivising practices seem to be the prevention of trade union formation and the direct dismissal of workers who agitated to form trade unions, joined a union or participated in strikes (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017; Dirección del Trabajo, 2016). Less frequent but equally visible are the practices of refusal to deduct the union fee from the payroll (thus leaving the union without monetary resources), constant harassment of trade union leaders and members, exclusion of trade union members from promotions and differentiating between union and non-union members (Henriquez, 2014). Although the legislation prohibits such practices, Chilean employers can often try to implement these strategies as a way of challenging the power of trade unions in the workplace and installing an atmosphere of fear over the idea of collective organisation (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017; Leiva, 2012). In contrast, some Chilean employers may not be as blatant in their anti-union ideology and can engage in more sophisticated or indirect union-weakening activities. These practices will be referred to as indirect because, different to the ones cited before, they are part of the labour legislation and thus have a more sophisticated profile. Isolated studies have described how Chilean employers have utilised some portions of the labour legislation to limit trade union power. But overall, little attention has been paid to understanding the different techniques through which union-weakening practices within the labour legislation have been implemented.

The five most widespread strategies contained in the Chilean legislation are the use of multi-rut (Biondi, 2005); a special type of collective agreement called convenio (López, 2007); the implementation of non-unionised negotiating groups of workers (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017); the extension of collectively bargained benefits to non-union workers (Dirección del Trabajo, 2016; Henriquez, 2014); and the abuse of the minimum services provisions (Simonet and González, 2015). The complexity of these practices can be such that employers can choose to implement them alone or in combination with one another resulting in a pool of de-collectivising strategies anchored in the labour legislation that can be tailored to each workplace. Table 1 shows a summary of the previously mentioned de-collectivising strategies.

Table 1.

Summary of specific de-collectivising strategies.

	Law	Content	Challenge to labour
Minimum services	Art. 359 of the Labour Code	In the event of a strike, the trade union needs to allow their members that perform essential services to work for the company and renounce their right to strike.	Limits the workers’ right to strike. Employers try bargaining for more services than are strictly essential. Employers try bargaining for more job positions than are strictly essential.
Extension of benefits	Art. 322 of the Labour Code	Employers can extend to non-union workers the benefits agreed with the company’s trade unions.	Depicts trade unions as unnecessary since non-unionised workers can access and obtain the benefits that were exclusively bargained with the trade unions.
Multi-rut	Art. 25 of the Commercial Code	A company can artificially divide itself into different companies.	Hinders freedom of association as workers cannot form one union amongst all the companies owned by the same conglomerate. Increases fragmentation of the labour movement by dividing the number of trade unions that can be implemented in a company.
Negotiating or bargaining groups	Art. 314 of the Labour Code	Non-unionised groups of workers can come together and bargain with their employer without the need to form a trade union. The topics of the bargaining can be similar to those of the workplace’s trade unions.	Depicts trade unions as unnecessary by allowing workers to form their own negotiating groups without having trade union status. Hinders trade union affiliation as workers may not perceive it as useful. Inserts competition in the workplace between trade unions and non-unionised negotiating groups.
Collective convenios	Art. 409 of the Labour Code	A special type of collective contract that does not include the right to strike but allows workers to bargain with the company for improvements in wages and working conditions.	Does not provide the right to strike to workers.

As this article will argue, the Chilean state has aided employers in the implementation of such union-weakening practices that are embedded in the labour legislation and has contributed to the overall weakness of the Chilean trade union movement. As there seems to be an ambivalence in the state’s relationship with the labour movement where it does not as such allow for the removal or de-recognition of trade unions (formally speaking), it has offset that feature by providing ample space for management to manoeuvre and implement union-weakening practices aiming at fragmenting and debilitating trade unions. The next sub-sections will describe in detail how these practices were implemented in three Chilean companies.

Case studies’ context and methods

This research was conducted using a qualitative approach of case study comparison where three Chilean companies in the food manufacturing industry and their trade unions were researched. The three cases that informed this research were selected on the basis of industry and company size. The sector was chosen due to its tradition of rather stable employment relations, leading to the assumption that the practices found in this sector would potentially represent those of the better employers. The size of the companies was also relevant in selecting the cases as larger companies may have more sophisticated systems of industrial relations, hence their potential to have stronger trade unions and positive employment relations. Consequently, the three resulting cases were unionised companies, with trade union membership higher than the national average and with some form of social dialogue happening between management and unions.

This research was part of a larger PhD project developed between the years 2015 and 2019 that covered a total of 69 interviews examining the process of revitalisation and labour–management partnership. At the time of the interview analysis, the researcher encountered curious and subtle issues of de-collectivisation in each of the analysed workplaces, therefore the idea of this article was developed. Overall, 35 interviews were conducted with the three companies’ trade unions, human resource managers, line managers and workers in the course of the case studies. Additionally, 34 interviews were embarked upon with national experts and with supplementary case study companies to gain a deeper understanding of the national and workplace-level issues. The trade unions from the case studies were all company-level unions with only two of them being affiliated to a national-level confederation. A detailed description now follows regarding the main characteristics of the three case study companies.

Company A is a Chilean-owned multinational company with annual revenues in 2018 of US$983 million. This company had four production plants operating in the country’s capital, employing around 3100 workers, 63% of whom were manufacturing workers, with an average monthly wage of US$625. At present, Company A has six trade unions that represent workers in the different production plants across the country. The largest trade union has approximately 400 members, the second largest trade union has a little over 120 members and gathers members from the retailing portion of the company, the third trade union has around 80 members and operates in a production plant that is not located in the country’s capital, the fourth trade union has 20 members, the fifth trade union has 15 members and the sixth trade union has 32 members. The fourth, fifth and sixth unions are considered agro trade unions. These numbers represent a 22.2% trade union affiliation rate.

The second case study, Company B, is a Chilean-owned multinational part of the largest food manufacturing conglomerate in Latin America, with US$1.145 million in annual revenues in 2018. Similar to other companies in the country, Company B operated as part of a parent company but completely independent from it, having separate production sites, infrastructure and workforce. The company employs approximately 1200 workers, half of whom are represented by three trade unions, resulting in a 50% affiliation rate. At the time of the interviews, the largest trade union (referred hereof as the ‘Largest Trade Union’) had almost 580 employees affiliated, the second trade union (referred hereof as the ‘Marginalised Trade Union’) had around 120 workers affiliated and the third trade union (referred hereof as the ‘Third Trade Union’) had 80 workers affiliated. By the second visit, these numbers had shifted due to several issues that will be later explained whereby the ‘Largest’ trade union had over 500 employees affiliated, the ‘Marginalised’ trade union was barely holding on to 20 members and the ‘Third’ union had a little over 55 members. Workers affiliated to a trade union in Company B earn on average US$500 as their monthly wage.

Finally, the last company case study, Company C, was initially a Chilean-owned multinational recently bought in 2011 by a foreign conglomerate with revenues in 2018 of US$459 million. They had a main production plant based in a peripheral area of the country’s capital with three smaller plants located in the south of the country. This company had little over 1100 workers whose wage was on average US$1000 per month. In terms of worker representation, Company C had two trade unions which, combined, represented a 75% membership rate with a similar percentage of bargaining coverage. ‘Union One’ was the oldest union with 350 members while ‘Union Two’ was the largest with 560 members. This company represented the highest trade union affiliation rate of the three cases studied.

The interviews were analysed using template analysis, a method that allows for the thematic organisation and analysis of qualitative data (Brooks and King, 2014). Using a coding template drawn from the research of Peetz (2002) and Gall and McKay (2001), the researcher identified themes that were central to determining the existing de-collectivising strategies in the three workplaces. The findings of the template analysis conducted are presented in the next section.

Findings: The diverse and subtle interaction between employer strategy and particular forms of state intervention in the weakening of voice

The main findings suggest that the three companies were engaging in general suppression and substitution practices against their workplace trade unions as well as using the de-collectivising strategies contained in the labour legislation. The researched companies suppressed the union role by engaging in direct communication with workers, extending collectively bargained benefits, using collective convenios instead of formal collective agreements and abusing the minimum services legislation. Likewise, to substitute the union role, these companies engaged in the strategies of multi-rut and non-unionised bargaining groups. These strategies not only coexisted and overlapped with each other, but they were also implemented while simultaneously having informal labour–management partnerships and collaborative collective bargaining. Such configuration of union-weakening practices alongside rather positive industrial relations makes the de-collectivisation of the Chilean workplaces a highly complex phenomenon. Therefore, the analysis of de-collectivising strategies in Chilean workplaces should be analysed by closely looking at the interactions between employers and workers. For at first glance, the employment relationship might indicate a somewhat collaborative relationship, but a deeper analysis may suggest subtler union-weakening practices. The details of the implementation of such practices by each company in the case studies will be described next, and a summary is presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Summary of de-collectivising strategies in the three case studies using Gall and McKay’s (2001) framework.

Strategy	Case study A	Case study B	Case study C
Suppression strategy	• Multi-rut • Bargaining group • Own participation and communication mechanisms such as weekly breakfasts with workers immediately after the strike	• Having a convenio with largest trade union • Implementation of minimum services • Dismissal of trade union members who have gone on strike • Police intervention in the picket lines • Refusal to meaningfully negotiate	• The employer tried to bargain for additional essential or minimum services than those that were absolutely needed to maintain the company operational in case of strikes
Substitution strategy	• Extension of collectively bargained benefits to non-union members	• Substitute union role via the message that unions can be unnecessary given the company’s good working conditions • Extension of collectively bargained benefits to non-union members	• Attempt to substitute the union role through the implementation of the ‘connection’ project where management directly communicates with workers

Source: Own illustration.

De-collectivising strategies in Company A: The irony of inclusivist strategies and the division of workers

Company A had an informal labour-partnership agreement with the company trade union which solidified after the trade union went on strike in 2014 to secure gains in wages and in working conditions. Despite actively engaging in such a collaborative relationship by meeting regularly with the unions and expressing their openness to working jointly on any issues the workers might have, Company A was simultaneously trying to further fragment the workplace and limit trade union power by implementing the multi-rut strategy, non-unionised negotiating groups and the extension of collectively bargained benefits to non-unionised workers.

The use of multi-rut was determined in this case study to be aimed at further fragmenting the unions in the workplace. As is common practice in Chile, this employer attempted to use the artificial division of the company into smaller units (or companies) to dilute their labour obligations and minimise the worker organisation. At the time of the interviews, the trade union leaders were mobilising against Company A’s misuse of multi-rut.

We were thinking about mobilising against the company because of [the use of] multi-rut, that way we could incorporate people from Company Ab [another company within the Holding owned by the multinational], from Company Ac [another company within the Holding owned by the multinational] and from all the subsidiaries that are owned by the company. But Company Ab’s trade union went ahead, and they sued the company first. If one union of the conglomerate sues the company, it is not necessary that other unions submit a separate case. A multi-rut [in the event that we win] allows for our people to join their union or that the people from other unions in the company may join our union. Doors open everywhere. It means that we lift the gates so that people can be where they want to be. But the tool named multi-rut needs to be understood as unification . . . it is the only way we can have muscle. (Company A, Union A, Trade union leader 1)

In parallel with this strategy, Company A used another technique within the range of mechanisms available in the labour legislation to try to limit the trade union power by supporting the implementation of a competing non-unionised negotiating group. Again, although prohibited by the legislation, this non-unionised group of workers was directly supported by the company with the purpose of hindering trade union affiliation, as the next comment illustrates:

. . . [the negotiating group] was set up by the company with all the former trade union affiliates and leaders. Altogether, it was 99 people in that group. The company picked them up in a bus so that they could meet. The company gave them the same benefits as ours but for 4 years and gave them $50,000 pesos as an end-of-conflict bonus . . . the only thing workers are saving is paying the 75% of the union fee. (Company A, Union A, Trade union leader 2)

According to Aravena (2006), the existence of bargaining groups in workplaces can translate into trade union weakness because such groups replace the role of trade unions (e.g. bargaining with the employer over wages and working conditions). The real ability of the workers engaged in these bargaining groups to negotiate wages and working conditions directly with the employer can be questioned as it does not safeguard in any way the employment security and stability of the workers in the way that the trade unions do (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017).

The extension of collectively bargained benefits was another de-collectivising strategy used by Company A taken directly from the labour legislation, whereby the employer extended the same benefits as for unionised workers to non-unionised workers as a way of discouraging trade union affiliation. Arguably by granting opportunities to employers to extend benefits, this legislation can further deepen the power distance between workers and employers (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017; Duran, 2013; Duran and Kremerman, 2015; Henriquez, 2014). Moreover, the extension of collectively bargained benefits is an existing Chilean workplace tradition that making it normalised, making it difficult for trade unionists to critically assess it as a union-weakening practice. Since it can be extremely common for employers to extend collectively agreed benefits, Chilean trade unions can often struggle to counter this practice (Henriquez, 2014), as expressed in the following comment:

The extension of collective benefits is annoying at first, you get angry at it, but then we know it is impossible to fight back, because if you go to the labour inspectorate and make a claim, the law allows it. I mean, the only requirement the law indicates is that workers who have benefited from the extension [of the benefits] pay 75% of the union fee. As long as they pay that, all complaints are useless [meaning the courts do not rule that this is an anti-union practice]. But we get angry because we were the ones that did all the hard work negotiating with the company, even going on strike to achieve those benefits. When we were out there striking, we needed everyone on the picket line and those workers who now have our benefits were comfortably seated while we were fighting. (Company A, Union A, Trade union leader 1)

In summary, Company A engaged in a range of de-collectivising strategies, all of which are part of the Chilean labour legislation. While recognising trade unions, Company A was engaging in collective bargaining and having a sort of labour–management partnership. Such combination of activities is indicative of the high complexity the de-collectivising phenomenon has in the Chilean context (Kirk, 2018).

De-collectivising strategies in Company B: Fragmenting communication and using minimum services

Similar to the previous case study, Company B and its largest trade union had a sort of informal labour–management partnership, where trade unions could approach the management and discuss any pressing matters regarding workers as well as harmoniously conducting the process of collective bargaining. Despite such a cordial relationship, Company B tested the union power during the agreement of minimum services where managers tried to secure more workers performing essential services than what was strictly necessary. Moreover, Company B was engaging in differentiated union-weakening practices with the three company’s trade unions, which can also illustrate the complexity of the Chilean employment relationship and the use of de-collectivising strategies. For the employer cannot only interact with a multiplicity of trade unions within a single workplace but can also afford to choose which de-collectivising strategy to implement with each of the unions.

This case study tended to be more complex than the previous one as the employer differentiated the union-weakening practices between the workplace trade unions in question. With the ‘Largest Trade Union’, the employer was more collaborative and open to dialogue, while with the ‘Marginalised Trade Union’ the employer tended to be more distant, reducing its interactions strictly to those arising from the formalities of the collective bargaining process. The analysis suggested that Company B used both suppression and substitution tactics to interact with unions. A summary of these trade union-weakening practices can be found in Table 2.

This employer often communicated to workers the unnecessary role played by unions because, according to the interviewed human resource managers, the company had created a ‘narrative’ about having positive working conditions incomparable to any other workplace in the same industry and region. This echoes Dundon et al.’s (2010) comments whereby through paternalistic policies, employers can displace any demands for collective representation.

Exacerbating the substitution approach to trade unions was Company B’s organisational culture that highlighted the insecurity of workers who participated in strikes. Over the course of two years, the employer dismissed all workers that had participated in strikes and/or remained affiliated to the ‘Marginalised Trade Union’, which was the trade union that had called for strikes. The management of Company B had singled out for termination those workers who participated in any strike and that were union members. The next extract from the interviews is rather long but clarifies the approach Company B had on strikes as explained by the ‘Largest’ trade union’s leaders:

Trade union leader 2:

I have been seeing different experiences throughout the years. In 1985, there was a strike in the Santiago plant. This is a strong company, with a tough approach to strikes, so if 500 people go on strike it is not a big concern for them . . .

Interviewer:

so, that means that strikes do not work with this company; it is not an effective form of protest?

Trade union leader 2:

Exactly, it is no pressure for them, if they want to break you, they can . . . . After the strike ended, fifteen days after the strike started, members of the striking trade union went back to work. It was then that the trade union’s leaders were questioned by the workers, who do they think they [the trade union leaders] are, taking us on strike? Of course, the people started getting angry, they didn’t know about the setbacks of the strike. That time during the strike was hard, controversies began, and a lot of drama happened, because people started getting sick, they needed medicines and they didn’t have any money to buy their medications. There were countless problems. So, after a while, the dismissal immunity [of workers on strike] ended, and they [the company] started dismissing a significant number of people from that union. That trade union was completely destabilised to the point that the leaders of that union had to leave. (Company B, Largest Trade Union, Trade union leader 2)

Employers implementing such practices wish to create a climate of vulnerability, thus making employees more willing to accept the company’s terms and conditions of employment (Dundon, 2002; Gall and Dundon, 2013; Peetz, 2002). Likewise, by dismissing trade union members, the company might have also been eliminating union sympathisers, thus discouraging unionisation (Cullinane and Dundon, 2014; Gall and McKay, 2001; Peetz, 2002). Supporting this argument was a line manager who explained how they were forced by management to dismiss workers solely based on their participation in the strike:

They [Company B’s human resource managers] tell you: ‘You have to dismiss that person’, and you don’t question it. To be honest, it isn’t a surprise anymore, because that happened just after the strike, oneyear or so after that . . . . I can understand the company’s position, they don’t want troublemakers, but they tell you, you have to dismiss that person and you say OK. And obviously you do not ask any further, but it is obvious it is because the person is part of the other trade union. (Company B, line manager)

More union-weakening practices contained in the labour legislation were also implemented in this case study as Company B engaged in two suppression activities to exclude trade unions from the workplace: the use of collective convenios and attempting to abuse minimum services. Using a collective convenio instead of a collective agreement was Company B’s preferred suppression strategy. The ‘Largest Trade Union’ agreed to sign a collective convenio with the company instead of a collective agreement because they perceived this was a better way of bargaining with Company B, as reflected in the next extract from the interviews:

We basically thought that if the company has a full tank of gas, we can go faster. We usually bargain in August/July so, why not negotiate right away? That could make the process of collective bargaining less traumatic and stressful for both sides. We were seven months – well before – the negotiation deadline. The company said we could do it, and we had to sign a collective convenio, but they told us to keep it quiet, that we should negotiate in private without other people knowing, and we totally agreed. Why? because if we involved other people [the workers], the negotiation could have been at risk. People start talking, the rumours spread and if something happened, everyone would blame the negotiation. (Company B, Largest Trade Union, Trade union leader 1)

The trade union leaders mentioned that they preferred this form of collective contract because by virtue of so doing, they were not bound by the deadlines and procedures of regulated collective bargaining. In their perception, they could begin the bargaining process at any point in time, even before the convenio expired, which was positive for them as they could, for instance, take advantage of the company’s positive economic periods. However, the trade union leaders failed to explain that by signing a collective convenio, they could not practise their right to strike. The elimination of the possibility of striking turns convenios into a trade union suppression strategy as the union’s ability to strike becomes annulled. Ultimately, it is possible that some trade unions choose to concede their right to strike in order to have a cooperative relationship with their employer rather than engaging in constant opposition. It is also possible that such trade unions believe that Chilean workers prefer dialogue and cooperation over confrontational strategies in order to achieve employment stability, especially in this case where engaging in strikes could lead to significant personal stigma and potential surveillance.

Company B also tried to limit the unions’ power by attempting to take advantage of the minimum services legislation thus inflating the number of essential jobs they required to operate in case of strikes. As explained by the leaders of the ‘Marginalised Trade Union’, they refused to agree with Company B’s proposals of minimum services as they felt they were disproportionate and would mean the company’s full operation during strikes.

The practice of Company B in implementing à la carte de-collectivising strategies according to their perceptions of trade union power to mobilise workers can, once more, be indicative of the possibilities that the Chilean labour legislation offers to employers.

De-collectivising strategies in Company C: The use of suppression strategies in a context of developed dialogue

Similar to Companies A and B, Company C’s informal labour-partnership agreement meant that industrial relations had an apparent collaborative approach where both of the company trade unions indicated engagement in collective bargaining without any major conflicts. Furthermore, the trade unions in Company C mentioned never having been on strike due to the company’s positive approach to industrial relations. However, a deeper analysis into the interactions between managers and trade unions showed that Company C still engaged in indirect union-weakening strategies. There was direct communication with workers, disguised as part of a project targeted at improving well-being, and an attempt to abuse the minimum services provision by bargaining with the trade unions for more job positions and services than necessary.

Company C also had a multi-union approach with the two trade unions operating at its main production site. ‘Union One’ was the smallest trade union at Company C and could be characterised as a business-friendly union due to the alignment of its perceptions with those of the managers. In contrast, ‘Union Two’ was the largest trade union in Company C and tended to have a more confrontational approach when interacting with the employer. Both trade unions were affiliated to a federation in their industry but only ‘Union Two’ was affiliated to the country’s peak national confederation, the Workers’ United Centre (CUT).

This case showed the interesting dynamic between a foreign parent company and a local subsidiary in terms of the employment relationship’s characteristics. Arguably, while Company C’s parent company was reinforcing a cooperative relationship with the trade unions, local managers in the Chilean subsidiary were attempting to weaken the unions. In theory, the concern over strikes should not be a characteristic of international multinational corporations as they have a tendency to praise a pluralist approach to the employment relationship, but the focus of its subsidiary, Company C, was still on quite direct forms of conflict avoidance.

Despite having international framework agreements and a no-conflict policy, Company C simultaneously implemented two de-collectivising strategies: direct communication with workers disguised as a human resource project that aimed at ‘connecting’ workers and the company, and the abuse of the legislation on minimum services. Direct employee voice can be used by companies to lessen the importance of indirect participation (Dundon et al., 2004) and Company C may have been guilty of doing this. In a comment taken from the interviews, the ‘Union Two’ leader mentioned a recent project aimed at strengthening the ‘connection’ between workers and managers:

The company has been implementing the project [‘connection’] for about 8 months now. They [the managers] called it ‘connection’ with the workers. Before making a presentation to the workers, because they even made a financial presentation! and the workers did not understand anything. The company makes a presentation to all workers, shows them the financial reality of the company, kind of as a way of saying to the workers that they are an important part of the company’s success. (Company C, Union Two, Trade union leader 1)

The name of this process of direct downward information sharing should not be taken lightly. Arguably, there may have been a purposeful yet subtle use of language whereby Company C was communicating to the workers its efforts to consider their opinions with regard to the production process. This use of language also supports the employment of more inclusive informational measures where the company tries to communicate a sense of cooperation and create a collaborative corporate culture through which workers may then consider trade unions to be unnecessary (Dundon, 2002; Gall and Dundon, 2013; Peetz, 2002; Van den Broek and Dundon, 2010). The trade union leader in ‘Union Two’ was against such a process of information sharing as he believed it caused more distrust among workers. Sharing raw financial information with workers was, in his opinion, a way of confusing workers to prevent them from questioning the company. As Beale and Mustchin (2014) explained, these direct forms of communication practices are often met with suspicion on the part of the unions as they are seen as an attempt to bypass the unions. Despite these concerns, the trade union eventually accepted that they could not prevent this project from being implemented.

Company C used another union-weakening strategy, this time taken from the labour legislation, when negotiating for the minimum services. According to the trade union leaders, during the negotiation of minimum services, Company C tried to establish a larger volume of services considered essential to continuing the operation of the company in the case of a strike, as illustrated in the next comment:

At first, we told them [Company C], zero minimum services! Zero. Yes, because they are minimum services. Managers here believe we are stupid; they think that we are imbeciles [but they were the ones asking] for stupid things such as minimum services. They asked for 1000 people to continue operating the plant . . . . So, we told the company, it had to be zero minimum services. Later, when we negotiated with the company and amongst the 5 leaders, we were shouting at each other because if you ask me, I say it is zero and I can give you the reasons. For me, the strike is a legal right that all workers have, and the company said no [to the union’s demand of not having any workers considered essential]. We almost got into a fight with them [with Company C]. Then we reached an agreement . . . (Company C, Union Two, Trade union leader 1)

Similar to what has been reported in the few studies on the matter, the interviewed trade union leader reflected on the fact that the employer tried to take advantage of this regulation by requesting more workers than were truly essential. By doing this, the company would remain operational in the run up to a strike. As discussed, the minimum services regulation can be considered a union-suppression strategy because it tries to limit the power unions have to disrupt the company’s operations. Moreover, the way in which the company tries to take advantage of the clause by including more workers in the agreement, can be considered a resistance tactic typical of union suppression mechanisms (Dundon, 2002; Gall and Dundon, 2013; Gall and McKay, 2001). A summary of these trade union-weakening practices can be found in Table 2.

Discussion and conclusion: The partially concealed yet widespread nature of de-collectivising strategies in Chile

This article has argued that the Chilean state has aided employers in the implementation of union-weakening practices through the labour legislation to limit trade union power. Employers have implemented sophisticated (i.e. indirect) forms of union avoidance practices which are aligned with the legislation and run alongside formal structures of collective bargaining. Such ambivalence in the Chilean state regarding collective labour rights is mostly explained by the fact that the basis of the Chilean legislation remains anchored in Pinochet’s 1979 Labour Code that emphasised deregulation and decentralisation of the employment relationship.

Although there have been four attempts at democratically reforming the labour legislation, there seems to be a strong yet subtle legacy of Pinochet’s regime in the employment relationship, exacerbating the presence of de-collectivisation in Chilean workplaces. The analysis showed that the Chilean state allowed for certain aspects of relevant regulations to be used by employers to weaken social dialogue and to fragment the workplace unions. Rather than having a unified strategy when dealing with union-weakening practices, the Chilean state has tended to have a dual approach – and a curiously flexible one – by recognising the importance of trade unions while simultaneously weakening them through the labour legislation. As a result, de-collectivisation has become a subtle interaction between state and employers, for the state has provided a template which has allowed employers to avoid or weaken trade unions.

The complexity of the analysis gradually grew due to the coexistence of de-collectivising strategies with apparent positive aspects of industrial relations such as the recognition of trade unions, collaborative collective bargaining and informal labour–management partnership agreements in the three case studies. The article showed the simultaneous implementation of an apparently harmonious employment relationship with a high level of subtlety in the union-weakening practices employed. Such sophisticated (i.e. indirect) strategies can also help to explain why Chilean workers may find unionisation less attractive, hence limiting the prospects for organising resulting in weaker unions. These union avoidance strategies can also explain the smaller size and more fragmented nature of Chilean unions (Baltera and Muñoz, 2017). Additionally, it is important to note that workers’ subjectivity, from the point of view of management, could have also played a role in the way companies implemented and used de-collectivising strategies: management worked on the assumption that Chilean workers may prefer dialogue with employers over confrontation due to perceived legacies of previous moments of mobilisation. Likewise, the workers’ monthly wages in the reviewed companies in comparison to Chile’s average were also relatively high as were their working conditions. These calculations may have translated into an unwillingness on the part of workers to engage in further conflict with employers in order to maintain employment stability.

The three researched companies emphasised different practices in their attempt to de-collectivise the workplace and implemented them in a combination of ways. While Companies A and C focused on the subtler use of union-weakening practices such as extension of collectively bargained benefits and multi-rut, Company B was more blatant in its approach to weakening trade unions and implemented dismissals when workers participated in strikes. Moreover, Company B tailored its union-weakening strategies to each of its trade unions, accentuating the endless possibilities in the rhetoric of de-collectivising practices.

When comparing the different union-weakening practices, the companies distinctively emphasised certain activities, which illustrated the more complex and uneven nature of employer approaches to resist unions, as suggested by Dundon (2002). These cases showed the different forms that de-collectivising strategies could take in the Chilean context, particularly in the food manufacturing industry, of which the most common were those embedded in the legislation. Arguably, these employers have contributed to the array of de-collectivising strategies, developing their own brand of local practices. Accordingly, this article represents the first attempt in the Chilean related academic literature to review and provide empirical evidence for the implementation of these practices, this being the second direct contribution of this article.

The power that employers have to use the more domestic de-collectivising practices (e.g. multi-rut, the extension of collectively bargained benefits to non-union members, the use of collective convenios over contractually binding collective agreements, the creation of bargaining groups and the use of minimum services procedures) shows how the regulatory context is indeed supportive of some union-weakening strategies. Similarly, the fact that the majority of these practices were linked to the state and quite deliberately facilitated by it, shows the deep-rooted fragmentation of the Chilean labour movement and its limited potential for renewal. This article serves as empirical evidence to understand how the state, despite several labour reforms, national social dialogue programmes and promises of labour regulation modernisation, sustains aspects of less interventionist states, limiting trade unions even when collective bargaining formally exists, albeit in a limited form.

In sum, the neoliberal policies implemented in the country as well as the indirect and obscure political legacy of Pinochet hindered unionisation and emphasised de-collectivisation of the workplace even in contexts where on the surface there were reasonable systems of industrial relations. Although there were some elements of protection for workers’ rights and some democratic institutions in place, a significant ambivalence in the legislative framework was also evident, which influenced the management approach to the trade unions. Such approaches can be considered a legacy of earlier union–state relationships that curtailed the actions of the labour movement, introducing major weaknesses.

Two additional conclusions remain, one having to do with the use of typologies and the other one with the language of de-collectivisation. With regard to the utilisation of typologies, although the taxonomy helped in characterising the employers’ practices, the use of categories should be treated with caution (Dundon, 2002). Certain practices may not neatly fit into one or another category, as was the case in this research. In the three analysed cases, employers used de-collectivising strategies in conjunction, overlapping with one another, showing the complexity that can be found when describing and analysing de-collectivising strategies (Cooper et al., 2009). The analysis conducted also showed a problem with the terminology used in the de-collectivising models. The term ‘suppression’, used to indicate employers’ willingness to eliminate unionisation in a more aggressive way, may not be comparable to the ‘suppression’ episodes that the labour movement experienced in a very real and unequivocal sense in Chile during the 1970s. The theoretical framework applied in this article has used the term ‘suppression’ in a slightly less aggressive way than the Latin American context has experienced; therefore, there should be an awareness of the context in which the term is used.

This article has directly contributed not only to the existing de-collectivising literature by offering empirical evidence in a Latin American context, but also to the discussion of the role of the state within the employment relationship. Future research on the topic of de-collectivising strategies and union-weakening practices remains a rather interesting topic because many of the presented practices tend to be influenced by contextual factors, be that the industry in which they are found or the country’s labour regulations. Therefore, it would be interesting to navigate the research on de-collectivisation in more industries and Latin American countries, where this topic has been less prominent.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Miguel Martínez-Lucio and Dr Stephen Mustchin for their thorough revisions at the different stages of this manuscript and their insights and constant support throughout the research. In addition, comments made by Dr Kara Ng were also greatly appreciated.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received partial financial support for the research by CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica), now ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo) through the doctoral scholarship scheme Becas Chile Doctorado en el Extranjero – 2015, folio 72160037; and by Alliance Manchester Business School at The University of Manchester through the Doctoral Research Support Allowance.

ORCID iD

Daina Bellido de Luna

Author biography

Daina Bellido de Luna is an organisational psychologist and a PhD in Business and Management working as an Assistant Professor at Universidad Autónoma de Chile in Santiago de Chile. Her research interests are industrial relations, trade unions, training, and the modernisation of the state.

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