ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that this entire labour reform programme, together with the political process of convincing the workers of the world to go along with it—to adjust to globalization—is part of a protracted offensive waged by capital against labour. It reconstructs some critical elements of the globalization process that provides the context for the labour reform agenda. The chapter focuses on the issue of wages and their connection to productivity gains made in the organization of production and the process of capital accumulation. It addresses the issue of productive investment as it relates to a process of productive transformation and technological conversion underway. The chapter draws together the threads of this analysis, providing a brief theoretical discourse on problems of Latin American labour. The World Bank's approach to labour market reform in Latin America as elsewhere is to promote the restructuring of the relation of capital to labour in the production process.
