Modernization in Vocational Education and Training in the Latin American and the Caribbean Region

Training and labour relations

Training is, today, a central and strategic component of labour relations systems. This is confirmed by the interest and growing involvement of firms and workers, of organisations representing the former and the latter, of Labour Ministries through their units specialised in the subject, their training and skills development programmes and the new active employment policies, the most recent labour laws and the increase in collective agreements containing arrangements regarding training.

In fact, training has always been closely linked to labour relations. Even in the pre-industrial stage, when production was crafts-like, there already existed the figures of the master craftsman and the apprentice, where the former gradually allowed and stimulated a progressive accumulation of knowledge and ability on the part of the latter who, finally, became the bearer and continuer of the tradition of the trade. That is to say, even at that time the learning process was completely integrated within those initial labour relations and was a part of the "rules of the game" of production and work of the age.

The development and rise of the industrial era, however, occurred jointly with the trends towards specialisation and greater levels of division of labour in society. Although learning never stopped being something important in work centres, at a certain time the responsibility for training people who were to occupy certain jobs began to be dislodged towards these other arenas, both physical and institutional, which became the training centres.

This latter trend, in Latin America and the Caribbean, occurred parallel to the first industrialising efforts, through the rise of specialised fora which began to take charge of the training function. The apprentice is, typically at this stage, a person, generally a young individual, who attends training courses in an institution for a certain period of his or her life and who becomes a worker when finally hired and located in a job where he applies the knowledge, ability and skills previously acquired. This was, however, a predominant but in no way absolute situation. In fact, already in the mid-seventies, some of the vocational training institutions such as the National Training Institute (INA) of Costa Rica, and Cinterfor/ILO itself, began to worry about delineating and applying strategies that would enable certification of workers who, through their own occupational performance, had reached levels of qualification which deserved formal recognition.

Thus, referring to the stage of industrialisation which occurred at the onset of the development model, it might be said that, in a general way, training played a role which was to a certain extent disguised within the labour relations systems of the times. Although at any place and under any circumstances qualification was an important component of production, the truth is that during that stage, when reference was made to "labour relations", it meant basically talk of facts and processes of negotiation and/or disputes around subjects such as wages, stability and job promotion methods, extension of social benefits, etc.

In that context, training was an activity which rarely was a matter for negotiation; therefore, it was scarcely mentioned within collective bargaining agreements, and in labour legislation was only referred to in some basically declarative ways or specifying the institutional environment in the framework of which its implementation had to be resolved (normally a public and national agency). In several countries labour and employer organizations maintained a significant interest, but in the last analysis it was limited to participation through delegates in the executive arenas of the vocational training institutions.

It was a case, indeed, of labour relations systems inserted in a system in which:

• The State played a central role in several ways, among which were collective negotiations, production and direct provision of services, and protection of domestic production through tariff barriers.
• Firms developed, precisely, in a heavily protectionist context, oriented towards the internal consumption market, and were therefore under no great pressure either from consumers or from the competition.
• Workers and their organisations fought for an extension and deepening of their rights, making a basic assumption, which was shared by the State and employers: production and employment would increase continuously, beyond any possible cyclical crises. Unions were, furthermore, organisations undergoing strengthening, to the extent that it was also believed that both industrial production and contracts based on wages would grow indefinitely and so, therefore, would their platform of representation and their power.
• As a result of the same strategy of "inward" development, the imperatives of innovation and technological development were restrained, life cycles of the products tended to be long, and demands for qualification of the labour force, and particularly for its re-qualification, were not so great in terms of updating with new techniques, tools, materials or forms of labour organisation. The challenge was in any case quantitative: to provide a sufficient number of qualified and semi-qualified workers for industry.

In the last twenty years this reality has changed radically in practically every way, causing, among other consequences, a revaluation of training within the labour systems and an increasing interest on the part of the different players in its regard. Why?

Firstly, because the international insertion strategies of the economies of the region have changed. Either by means of unilateral trade liberalisation policies or in the context of regional integration processes, in a more or less drastic fashion domestic production begins to be exposed to other kinds of rules which require urgent action to improve competitiveness. This has led to an intensification of the pace of technological change applied to production, a reduction in the life cycles of products and, therefore, also of skills, generating constant pressure for their updating.

Secondly, the relative importance of the "knowledge factor" within the new forms of organisation of production and labour has increased markedly. Information and knowledge control thus becomes strategic, as were of yore land control or control of the means of production. The capacity to generate knowledge, and to manage it within the concept of learning organisations, is considered a key strength for competitiveness and has resulted in a revaluation of human talent. Thus the interest of the different players in accessing decision-making regarding design, execution or financing of training also becomes something vital.

Thirdly, the assumption of sustained and indefinite growth of production and employment -or rather of the direct relationship between them- has been shown at the outcome to be invalid. Although production may continue to grow, as in fact it does, employment generation does not occur in correlation with it and, in many cases, we face the new and worrying phenomenon of economic and productive growth with rising unemployment. Employment growth in the most economically dynamic sectors is not enough to compensate, in many cases, the dismissals arising from the new capital-labour relationship, affected by the introduction of technological innovations and by the closings occurring in sectors incapable of counteracting the competition of goods from abroad. In the old context, it was enough to apply compensatory-type policies in periods of crisis, such as unemployment insurance or emergency employment programmes. At present a new generation of active labour market policies has arisen which invariably considers training and skills development to be their most central and strategic element.

In this new context, the position of the productive and occupational players changes, negotiations become more complex and it becomes increasingly difficult to deal with subjects such as wages or labour stability in an independent manner. Much more attention is paid to the relationships among employment, wages, productivity, production, competition, quality, etc. It is within this new state of affairs that training appears revalued and begins to be perceived as a strategic subject. It is incorporated into a growing number of collective agreements and also included in labour laws. Experiences of social dialogue and arrangement arise and multiply in the training field, and they prove to have a very large capacity for development and sustainability, even in contexts where conflicts are great.

As a feature within a more general process of restructuring and reassessment of the role of the State in social and economic life, but also regarding the revaluation of training in the field of labour relations, the Labour Ministries (Mintrab) have, in an increasingly generalised manner, become protagonists in the area of vocational training in Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly concerning the definition of the general thrust of policies.

From the former mediation role in the capital-labour relationship, focusing on remuneration, stability and working conditions aspects, these Ministries broaden their competence to deal with, in this regard, training from the standpoint of active employment policies. This is expressed both in regulations and in the institutional structure itself, with the creation and development of secretariats, boards or services specifically addressing vocational training and its relationship with other occupational aspects.

This increasing incumbency began, precisely, when the labour authorities understood that vocational training is a key feature in the formulation and implementation of active employment policies.

In the mid-seventies in Chile; approximately ten years later in Mexico, and particularly since the beginning of the present decade in other countries: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, to mention a few, the Labour Ministries developed ambitious projects increasing their involvement in the field of public employment policy generation. These programmes, financed with their own resources in almost all cases, reinforced in others by international banking credits, not only acknowledge the relevance of vocational training to achieve results, but also initiate a re-formulation of their traditional institutionality: the training systems which begin to be generated seek definition on the basis of greater attention being paid to the production machinery’s demand for training. This approach is conceived with a view to overcoming, somehow, the rigidity observed in some national institutions which had become attached to an organizational and programmatic structure which was too closely linked to the available training supply.

Because of this, it can be said that training occupies a central place within the active employment policies which are beginning to be promoted by the labour ministries. Within this approach, the conception developed plays a role centred on policy and strategy design, generation of financing mechanisms and supervision, monitoring and evaluation of training activities, delegating the function of executing those activities to other agents, both public and private.

As has already been said, the importance assigned to these policies is evident in the major financial resources allocated to carrying out the various programmes and projects. These resources come from different sources: public funds for training established by law; special resources from the public treasury; unemployment funds; as well as the Labour Ministries’ capacity to obtain public loans in the field of vocational training (projects together with the IDB and the World Bank, inter alia). As a partial review, the following examples may be mentioned, among others:

 

Also important are tripartite actions which, co-ordinated by the Ministries, incorporate employers and workers to discussion and decision-making on policies being considered.

But what merits special mention is the present role of Labour Ministries through the already cited active labour market policies. To the extent that those Ministries participate in the definition of the larger national guidelines involving development and productive transformation strategies, as they begin to act also in the field of strengthening and modernising the supply of training, they are able to act simultaneously and consistently on the different and major aspects of the problem.

The decision to intervene in the labour market through employment policies arises from different reasons: to address transition problems in the process of opening up the economy; to respond to social risk situations through redistribution mechanisms; to correct market defects, both in terms of the link between labour supply and demand and in the training area.

Within the new concept of active labour market policies, a field in which the Labour Ministries have taken, and take, measures of great importance and significance, is that of youth training and employment programmes and projects. Addressed to young people in a situation of structural unemployment and high social risk, they arose as mechanisms for compensating the harsh social effects of the policies of structural adjustment and opening up to international trade of the economies of the region, with their relevant processes of reorganisation of state social services. Through a concentrated and intensive process of services involving skills development, training by psychosocial-type cross-sectional competencies, remedial education and on-the-job training, the programmes aim at increasing opportunities for labour insertion of this population. Some of the main characteristics are: the adoption as an indicator of the relevance of training to the detection of opportunities for on-the-job training in firms; the self-focusing of the target population; and non-concentrated execution regulated by market mechanisms.

The Labour Ministries of the region, in short, are acting decisively in the field of vocational training and contributing to its integration on the basis of higher and national strategies, related to productive transformation and the challenge to increase productivity and competitiveness of firms and economies, in order to ensure environmentally and socially sustainable economic growth.

 

 

The Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/Cinterfor)
Avda. Uruguay 1238 - Montevideo - Uruguay - Tel: (5982) 908 6023 - 902 0557 - 908 0545 - Fax: (5982) 902 1305
webmaster@cinterfor.org.uy

Copyright © 1996-2008 International Labour Organisation (ILO) - Disclaimer