The Deconstruction of Social Protection Through the Flexibility of the Labor Contract: a Critical Realist Analysis of the Mexican Labor Reform
uma análise da reforma trabalhista mexicana
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34019/2318-101X.2022.v17.38491Abstract
This paper analyzes the impacts generated by the Mexican labor reform law on the characteristics and working conditions of unionized workers. Based on critical realist social theory, it was considered that institutional changes in the mechanisms of the social structure of work are based on three ontological categories: space-time, identity and power. The empirical research analyzed the case of three unions with the highest number of affiliates, in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. The mixed research strategy was used, with the collection of quantitative and qualitative data, from which historical, documentary and statistical data were taken. The evidence suggests that morphogenesis in space-time structures implies new identity configurations - individual and collective - which, in turn, allow reconfigurations in power structures. It follows, in the end, that the changes introduced towards “flexibility” in the labor contract generated the social lack of protection of the worker, worsening their working conditions.