Los sindicatos y las nuevas tendencias en las relaciones laborales y en la organización del trabajo

Recent changes observed in labor markets and labor institutions are analyzed in the paper. Many factors can provide a partial explanation of the decline in the unionization: technological changes, new models of work organization, a different labor force closely associated with a service economy, decentralized labor relations. The unionization decline is a common feature of both the developed and the developing economies and is one of the major challenges unions are facing at the end of the century. Other challenges are the human resources policies of the enterprises that, in many cases, deal with questions previously dealt with in the bargaining process, the growing unemployment, the globalization of the world economy. At present unions understand that to survive they need to adapt to the new circumstances and to develop new strategies to replace the old model of collective bargaining.