The 2015 elections in Argentina and its impact on labour

Bruno Dobrusin

Luis Campos

The right-wing victory

On November 22nd, Argentina underwent the second round of the 2015 presidential election. The stand-off between the candidate of the Peronist party, then-governor of Argentina’s largest province, Daniel Scioli, and the right-wing mayor of the City of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, was decided in favour of Macri by a margin of just over 2 percent of the vote (51-49%). The victory of Macri represents a significant change both in Argentina and in South America. The wave of victories of left and center-left governments seems to be coming to an end in the region, the continental right-wing (with the support of the usual external forces) are getting the upper-hand.

Repositioning Social Dialogue: The South African Case

Katherine Joynt 

Edward Webster

Introduction
A crucial moment in South Africa’s transition to democracy was the signing of the Laboria Minute in 1990 between unions, employers and government where it was agreed that no laws on labour market issues would be passed without the agreement of all three social partners. This led to the establishment of the National Economic Forum (NEF) in 1992 and its merging with the National Manpower Commission (NMC) to create South Africa’s premier social dialogue institution, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC). In many ways the Laboria Minute was to pre-figure the political negotiations that led to South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994.

NEDLAC is distinctive as a peak-level social dialogue institution in that it includes not just labour market issues but also trade and industrial policy, monetary and fiscal policy as well as developmental issues. The traditional tripartite structure was also broadened to include community organisations.

In 2013 the authors were appointed to undertake an External Review to recommend ways of repositioning NEDLAC. We interviewed representatives from all four of the constituencies and wrote up a report. Subsequently we presented the report separately to all four constituencies and then incorporated their feedback into the review again before finalising our recommendations.