Contesting the Neoliberal Order through Legal Mobilisation: The Case of Chilean Unions

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-599
Author(s):  
Francisca Gutiérrez Crocco

AbstractScholars interested in labour in Latin America have traditionally paid little attention to trade unions’ legal mobilisation. However, the increasing number of legal complaints filed by workers with labour ministries and/or the courts in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile calls for a more serious debate on the role that trade unions play in this process. This article focuses on the Chilean case. Drawing on various sources, it shows that Chilean unions have turned legal complaints into a weapon to gain more rights and curb employers’ power. This process has involved the strongest and most combative unions, and is due to two historical conditions: (1) the obstacles placed in the way of successful resort to more disruptive tactics; (2) the increase in institutional opportunities to report infringements of the law. Overall, the article challenges the current image of the Chilean unions by foregrounding their agency and their achievements over the last decade.

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-253
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Stefanowicz

This article undertakes to show the way that has led to the statutory decriminalization of euthanasia-related murder and assisted suicide in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It presents the evolution of the views held by Dutch society on the euthanasia related practice, in the consequence of which death on demand has become legal after less than thirty years. Due attention is paid to the role of organs of public authority in these changes, with a particular emphasis put on the role of the Dutch Parliament – the States General. Because of scarcity of space and limited length of the article, the change in the attitudes toward euthanasia, which has taken place in the Netherlands, is presented in a synthetic way – from the first discussions on admissibility of a euthanasia-related murder carried out in the 1970s, through the practice of killing patients at their request, which was against the law at that time, but with years began more and more acceptable, up to the statutory decriminalization of euthanasia by the Dutch Parliament, made with the support of the majority of society.


TAJDID ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Husni Husni

This article studies the concept of Ihsan (good deed) in the thought of ulama mufassirs (Muslim scholars interpretering the Qur’an). The result of the study being carried out by the writer is that the concept of ihsan being too narrowly interpreted, proves that it has wide interpretation in the thought of muffasirs. If so far among society the concept of ihsan has been narrowly interpreted on the good deed or doing good deed, so according to mufassirs, the concept means: (1) carrying out all obligations, (2) being patient to receive all the obligation and anything forbidden by God, (3) being obedient and always perfects his obedience in quality as well as in the way, (4) forgiving, (5) being sincere, (6) realizing the existence of God, (7) emphasizing the esoteric aspect rather than exoteric world, (8) knowledge, (9) being firm in the truthfulness, (10) havng understanding about the true teachings of God, (11) having good comprehension about the law appropriately applied among the Islamic society. The wide meaning of this concept because this concept is really expressed by the Koran in context. This article tries to attach the concept of Ihsan in several meanings about the education world


Author(s):  
Eva Steiner

This chapter examines the French law of tort. Although French law takes a broad approach to civil liability, when looking more closely at the way in which French judges have dealt with claims in tort, it becomes apparent that the need to avoid extending the scope of civil liability to an unlimited extent has also been present in French law. Indeed, in order to achieve desirable results, French judges have on many occasions used their discretion to interpret restrictively the elastic concepts of fault, damage, and causation. Hence, they end up dismissing claims which, for policy reasons, would have created unjust results or would have opened the gates to a flood of new claims. Thus, even though French judges do not admit to it openly in their judgments, they are influenced as regards the matter of deciding the limits of liability by general policy considerations, especially the ‘floodgates arguments’ which their English counterparts also readily understand.


Author(s):  
Federico M. Rossi

The history of Latin America cannot be understood without analyzing the role played by labor movements in organizing formal and informal workers across urban and rural contexts.This chapter analyzes the history of labor movements in Latin America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. After debating the distinction between “working class” and “popular sectors,” the chapter proposes that labor movements encompass more than trade unions. The history of labor movements is analyzed through the dynamics of globalization, incorporation waves, revolutions, authoritarian breakdowns, and democratization. Taking a relational approach, these macro-dynamics are studied in connection with the main revolutionary and reformist strategic disputes of the Latin American labor movements.


Author(s):  
Cécile Guillaume

Abstract Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members’ interests. In particular, it investigates how ‘legal framing’ has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.


Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
David Gindis ◽  
Geoffrey M. Hodgson

Abstract In his recent book on Property, Power and Politics, Jean-Philippe Robé makes a strong case for the need to understand the legal foundations of modern capitalism. He also insists that it is important to distinguish between firms and corporations. We agree. But Robé criticizes our definition of firms in terms of legally recognized capacities on the grounds that it does not take the distinction seriously enough. He argues that firms are not legally recognized as such, as the law only knows corporations. This argument, which is capable of different interpretations, leads to the bizarre result that corporations are not firms. Using etymological and other evidence, we show that firms are treated as legally constituted business entities in both common parlance and legal discourse. The way the law defines firms and corporations, while the product of a discourse which is in many ways distinct from everyday language, has such profound implications for the way firms operate in practice that no institutional theory of the firm worthy of the name can afford to ignore it.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Zeliang Zhang ◽  
Kang Xiaohan ◽  
Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid ◽  
Hiroyuki Iida

The notion of comfort with respect to rides, such as roller coasters, is typically addressed from the perspective of a physical ride, where the convenience of transportation is redefined to minimize risk and maximize thrill. As a popular form of entertainment, roller coasters sit at the nexus of rides and games, providing a suitable environment to measure both mental and physical experiences of rider comfort. In this paper, the way risk and comfort affect such experiences is investigated, and the connection between play comfort and ride comfort is explored. A roller coaster ride simulation is adopted as the target environment for this research, which combines the feeling of being thrill and comfort simultaneously. At the same time, this paper also expands research on roller coaster rides while bridging the rides and games via the analogy of the law of physics, a concept currently known as motion in mind. This study’s contribution involves a roller coaster ride model, which provides an extended understanding of the relationship between physical performance and the mental experience relative to the concept of motion in mind while establishing critical criteria for a comfortable experience of both the ride and play.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 258-262
Author(s):  
Anne van Aaken

While Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) prescribe the rules of interpretation for international treaty law as “disciplining rules,” the rules of interpretation themselves are understudied from a cognitive psychology perspective. This is problematic because, as Jerome Frank observed, “judges are incurably human,” like everybody else. I submit that behavioral approaches could provide insights into how biases and heuristics affect the way judges and other interpreters use the VCLT rules.


1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Coad

We publish below a list of writers and journalists abducted by the security forces and numbered among the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina since 24 March 1976, the date of the military coup that installed General Jorge Rafael Videla in power. Two eye-witness accounts illustrate the way in which such abductions usually take place. Finally, Robert Cox, editor-in-exile of the daily newspaper Buenos Aires Herald, describes how independent-minded journalists and the families of los desaparecidos ( ‘the disappeared’) have been affected. The material is introduced by Index on Censorship's researcher on Latin America, Malcolm Coad.


Author(s):  
Heinz Grossekettler

AbstractThis paper considers the impact over time of the German “Economic Growth and Stability Law”, which had its 40th anniversary on the 6th June, 2007. After looking at the history and development of the law and the associated expectations, the intended functions are analysed critically. Inappropriate use of the law is analysed from the perspective of public choice, as well as the insufficient consideration of reaction delays and, above all, the underestimation of the role of expectations. Furthermore, attention is paid to the fact that planning and coordination problems have not been satisfactorily resolved. A comparison with a control group from major European countries is then used to determine whether one can talk meaningfully in the German context of particular success stories in countering fluctuations in business cycles, the development of governmental debt and of legal objectives with respect to “price level stability”, “high levels of employment”, “current account equilibrium” and “satisfactory economic growth”. It becomes evident that government debt and unemployment have risen more in Germany and that growth rates have declined more sharply than in the countries on which the comparison is based. After discussing the hypotheses for explaining the weak German growth, growth accounting demonstrates that changes in the demographic structure, the substantial shortening of working hours and early retirement, blunders in the reunification process and an aggressive wage policy on the part of trade unions, particularly in the seventies, are the main reasons for low growth. This wage policy was triggered by the expectation of the trade unions that, with the aid of the Stability and Growth Law, the state would ensure full employment. In reality, however, the wage policy led to a reduced rate of investment and growth. This process could only be terminated by the restrained wage policy of the past few years.


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