Recent Transformations in Training and Social Dialogue in Latin America

Traditional models of training are currently undergoing change in the Latin American region. New alliances and forms of collaboration between different institutions and social actors are emerging in various countries around the region. These transformations involve the State, enterprises, trade unions and organisations of civil society in the task of exploring new avenues for the provision of vocational training.² This book provides a collection of case studies that explore recent changes in the delivery of VET (Vocational Education and Training), in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay.

The diversity of social actors participating in broad-based dialogue around VET may be a growing characteristic of the VET systems in Latin America. These changed institutionalities in VET also contribute toward influencing training outcomes as well. It will be seen that the wider participation of social actors in dialogue around training plays an important role in raising the relevance of courses, increasing the variety of courses offered for more diverse occupations, helping to make courses more demand-driven and even contributing toward improved social equality by overcoming barriers to training for more vulnerable and excluded segments of the labour force.

The first section of this Introduction examines the issue of tripartism and social dialogue as an ILO value with antecedents in Latin America. The second section briefly contrasts labour market transformations in OECD countries with those in Latin America. The third section addresses the general changes that have taken place in vocational training in recent decades. The final section briefly highlights some of the main themes that are raised by the case studies in this book.

The principles of tripartism and social dialogue have formed the cornerstone of the ILO's operations since its inception in 1919. The ILO's Governing Body is composed of representatives of government, employers' associations and workers' confederations, all acting under the principle of tripartite dialogue. The origins of the ILO lie in the social ideas developed in the age of the Industrial Revolution to search for joint responses to the harsh living and working conditions faced by workers within the economic system emerging in the late nineteenth century.

Times have changed with the increasing liberalisation of markets under the global economy at the end of the twentieth century, yet the fundamental principles and vision of the ILO retain their relevance. These principles have been placed under pressure by many recent theories and practices in the world of work. In this context, it is of particular interest to examine cases where social and economic actors have joined together under the conviction that maintaining open channels of communication is the most effective and lasting mode for responding to economic and productive change and for implementing policies that simultaneously safeguard the interests of production and workers' rights.

In recent years, the Latin American region has produced new experiences that reveal a unique manifestation of these principles and processes of social dialogue as applied to vocational training. Historically, many cases can be cited of influential workers' movements in Latin America. These movements have contributed toward important social advances not only in the productive sphere, and also sometimes at the level of national policy.

The developmental model of import substitution pursued by Latin American economies often followed a dirigiste style of governance that concentrated power in the hands of the State. Large and powerful state enterprises and multinational corporations installed in leading sectors of the economy and trade union activity generally concentrated in these large enterprises. In a similar form, vocational training was also relegated to one large institution responsible for defining and implementing public policies for vocational training at the national level. Some exceptions may be found in countries that opted for creating institutions linked to major sectors (e.g. industry, commerce, services or agriculture) or more specific sectors (e.g. construction or sugar production), yet even these cases did not break with the traditionally monopolistic character of these training institutions.³

The democratisation of the region and the emergence and strengthening of organised civil society and its associated institutions has opened the space for dialogue around public policies. This dialogue around policies of broad impact has been institutionalised in some cases, including Mexico with its Social Pact, Brazil with its public employment system, and Uruguay with its National Employment Junta. As we shall see in the following section, economic transformations in the region during the 1980s and 1990s have dramatically altered the structure of employment, consequently affecting the demand for training.

During the 1980s and 1990s, far-reaching transformations have taken place in the structure of the labour market that have accelerated the emergence of new occupations, rising informality and diverse forms of labour market insertion. Economic restructuring and trade liberalisation, as well as turbulent macro-economic conditions, have deeply affected enterprises in terms of both their employment generation and their human resource requirements. In most countries, the source of economic dynamism is shifting from manufacturing to services and trade, accompanied by the emergence of non-standard forms of work.

In the OECD countries, these changes have been principally in the mode of formal employment, moving toward increased part-time work (especially for women) and a reduction in overall hours of work. Typically, these changes are taking place within an institutional framework of protection of workers' rights. In contrast, in Latin America, the changes have been in the very structure of employment itself. Growth in the informal sector, self-employment and microenterprises, formerly considered "non-standard" forms of work, now account for the majority of labour market insertion among the economically active population in Latin America.

It is essential to note that, in contrast to the majority of the OECD countries, these changes in Latin American labour markets are being undertaken without a strong framework of labour legislation or forms of social protection, generating the conditions for precarious and unprotected work (without social security). Indeed, most liberalisation programmes adopted by countries in the region are promoting flexibility and reducing existing protective labour norms.

These changes in the structure of employment and in the type of demand for vocational training are important factors in increasing pressure for reform of the institutional structure and content of vocational training.

As a result of these transformations in the labour market, new training demands have emerged to address the needs of new segments of the labour force, new and emerging occupations, and the new emphasis on workplace competencies.⁴ A flexible, representative and decentralised system is called for, one that is demand-driven rather than supply-oriented.⁵ This new approach will increasingly enable the vocational training system to be more accurate and efficient in identifying new labour market demands and in responding with appropriate courses.

Social dialogue becomes fundamental in this context, yet in a broader form than practiced previously, making it possible to join representatives of the principal social actors in the process.

As it emerged in the 1940-1970 period, vocational training in Latin America was marked by the characteristics of the developmental model adopted at that time and was treated as a national challenge. In all countries, it was viewed as a public issue and conceived of in terms of social policy within the framework of that time, with universalist objectives and responsibility for the design, planning and execution of training placed within a public or para-statal institution. It was virtually unknown in the region to have training treated as a private sector issue at the time.⁶

Influenced by the model of development adopted and the labour market structure at the time, vocational training tended to serve a rather narrowly defined working population of urban males working in the metal-working industry and in the formal sector generally. The formulation of courses also tended to be supply-push rather than driven by market demand.⁷

While there is no homogeneous model of vocational training in Latin America, three general training models can be identified:

In contrast to many ILO studies that have explored the role of strategic alliances between the State and enterprises (Martinez Espinoza 1998, Mitchell 1998),⁹ many new vocational training initiatives in Latin America are establishing a new institutionality for dialogue that broadens the vision of training along two axes:

Four major changes in the institutionality of vocational training in Latin America can be identified:

The major impulse for the transformation of existing vocational training systems arises precisely from the emergence of formerly non-standard and informal activities as a major source of employment growth in the economy, as well as the diversification of the economically active population. Diversification is most evident in the substantially increased participation of women, that requires training institutions to diversify their course offerings, both in terms of content and population served and to develop more effective methods for detecting new and emerging market demands.

Hence, some experiences indicate that a trend toward a more broad-based and participatory approach to vocational training is underway in Latin America. This shift arises in part due to the extraordinary increase in demand for professional education among the economically active population in these countries, as well as the diversity of demand arising from the deep structural changes taking place in the world of work, as described in the previous section. Furthermore, changing institutionalities in the provision of vocational training and the context of greater participation of social actors and civil society have created conditions favourable to their active role in identifying demand and, in some circumstances, providing training.

The following section briefly summarises some of the main themes and tendencies that have been described in the various case studies¹¹ that are collected in this book. Although some of these cases are still evolving, when joined together as a set of studies, they show a new path of institutional alliances and forms of collaboration among a broader range of social actors than has commonly taken place previously around the issue of vocational training. Furthermore, VET itself gains a new and wider-reaching significance in this process of social dialogue and negotiation. As noted in another study on this theme, VET now is not treated as an exclusive theme, but rather appears as an integrated part of the more general debate on employment policies and increased productivity and competitiveness for companies, revealing a growing and tighter relation between VET and the world of work.¹²

New Institutionalities and Social Dialogue around Vocational Training in the Southern Cone

The issue of training has sparked the interest and participation of workers, local governments, sectoral business associations and a gamut of organisations of civil society, due to deep labour market transformations and the diffusion of new technologies. These same transformations require changes in the structure and content of training delivered.

For example, in Chile, the formation of Bipartite Training Committees was encouraged by law in an effort to further advance the democratisation process at the plant level. Committees have been instituted in various companies around the country with the aim of stimulating joint dialogue over worker training within individual companies. In Uruguay the creation of the National Employment Junta, a multipartite body with its own resources designated to support new experiences, was a decisive step toward intervening actively in the formulation and implementation of employment and training policies. In this way, public policies for labour market adjustment moved beyond static measures such as unemployment insurance, to create a more dynamic structure for a public employment system, incorporating various representative sectors of society and featuring the financial resources available to support new and innovative initiatives.

In a similar fashion, social dialogue around training has been institutionalised in Brazil via a tripartite body operating at the federal level (the CODEFAT, the Deliberative Council for the Workers' Assistance Fund), with a multipartite format at the state level (the State Employment Councils) and at the municipal level (the Municipal Employment Councils). A special fund was also created, as in Uruguay, making substantial resources available for stimulating new employment and training initiatives around the country.

Trade union activity has also moved beyond an agenda of improving wages and working conditions, as they recognise that changes in employment and labour market conditions require that they also participate in decisions related to training and employment policies. There are also numerous examples where trade unions have initiated their own programmes to stimulate social dialogue around worker training. In Argentina, some of the more active trade unions have begun participating in bipartite dialogue with employers to establish worker training programmes at the sectoral level, most noteably in the building industry. In Brazil, various trade union initiatives have emerged under the support of the embryonic public employment system mentioned above. One noteworthy initiative, created by the metalworkers' union, is a programme that integrates basic literacy courses and certification with initiatives for labour market insertion, while stimulating plant-level dialogue with management around restructuring and training issues.

Initiatives for implementing municipal-level training institutes, which involve dialogue with social actors at the local level, have also been introduced in Argentina in certain provinces such as Santa Fe, the Chaco and the greater Buenos Aires municipal region.

Some training initiatives have also attempted to promote strategic targeting for especially vulnerable and excluded segments of the labour force. In Chile, the National Service for Women has designed a national training programme for low-income women and single mothers that has introduced innovative measures including social programmes to complement the purely vocational elements of training in order to increase the relevance and positive labour market outcomes of the programme. The National Plan for Professional Education in Brazil has also explicitly sought to promote equal access for excluded and vulnerable groups in society by establishing targets for trainee participation by gender, race, ethnic origin, income and level of education.

It is too early to discuss the findings of these Southern Cone studies, most of which are still underway. However, these initiatives involving social dialogue and training raise new themes that are highly relevant here. First, the studies reveal that social dialogue increases the ability of all the major actors to meet a range of demands for training in new and emerging sectors and occupations. Also, social dialogue can help to find ways for the social actors involved to address and hopefully resolve their differing interests in a mutually-agreed form. Social dialogue also opens new forms of managing conflict while also identifying and achieving agreement on common interests in training. Second, the issue of how to finance new training experiences is crucial. The increased demand for courses, especially among more vulnerable segments of the labour force, is undoubtedly a crucial area for public policy, particularly in the context of economic restructuring. However, the source of financing for new initiatives must be identified. A permanent fund to support such employment and training initiatives has been created in Brazil and Uruguay, and may serve as an example of a particularly effective approach for other countries to follow. A related issue of concern is whether new initiatives that receive financing in order to begin their training activities have the potential to eventually become self-sustaining via other sources of financial support.

Another theme raised by these studies is the search for mechanisms to stimulate the creation of courses for new and emerging occupations, that are frequently the areas where dynamic employment creation and income generation is occurring. An important area for further exploration is the role of training in overcoming economic and social exclusion among workers who have either suffered the worst impacts of restructuring or who have been marginalised from effective labour market insertion, and how targeted training policies can be used to promote more equal access for these vulnerable groups. Finally, the examination of new initiatives in vocational training and the role of social dialogue also suggests the need to implement a process of transforming existing training structures and practices, preferably in a democratic, participatory and representative way.

The emergence of innovative experiences and the promotion of social dialogue around training in Latin America are certainly harbingers of more widespread changes that will take place in the future.

Market liberalisation and the diffusion of new technologies as part of the process of globalisation have transformed the structure of labour markets across the Latin American region. The restructuring of industry which has shed labour and increased qualification requirements, as well as the continuing structural shift to services and the emergence of new occupations, non-standard and informal sector activities, all have increased the demand for training as well as heightened the need for new course content.

The case studies in this book, collected from various parts of Latin America, show that the institutional structure of the supply and demand for training is being reshaped and the vision of training as an activity largely centralised by the State or negotiated between the State and enterprises has broadened. The supply of training has been decentralised to the local level and includes greater participation of social actors, especially trade unions but also local associations of civil society. In addition, specific social and economic characteristics of the Latin American labour force (such as low formal education and large segments of working poor) also require the adaptation of course content and wider access in order to increase the efficacy of learning, as well as to improve employment opportunities for more disadvantaged workers. These new market demands require a more flexible system, one that is decentralised in operation, representative of a greater share of the current labour force and clearly driven by labour market demand.

The case studies reveal a diversity of new experiences involving dialogue among different social actors, in contrast to more conventional State-enterprise dialogue on VET. Preliminary findings from these studies reveal the ability of social dialogue to contribute to making fundamental changes in the content and structure of courses to meet new demands from emerging sectors and occupations. Social dialogue around training may also contribute toward decreasing conflict between management and labour over worker skills, recognising qualifications and planning layoffs. More vulnerable segments of the labour force may be helped to achieve more effective labour market re-insertion via training activities developed through broad-based social dialogue. The financing of new experiences in training and their future sustainability are key areas where innovative projects are being encouraged, suggesting that a special national fund should be established for this purpose. Finally, the Latin American experience shows that issues of social exclusion can also be addressed via dialogue in ways that assist in directing training programmes toward more vulnerable and discriminated segments of the labour force.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department