ABSTRACT
Labour legislation reflects the continuation of a neoliberal path, especially in Chile, where the basic foundations of the neoliberal regime imposed through violent repression during the dictatorship have not changed in significant ways. This chapter briefly sketches how the broad range of transformations have impacted on working conditions and on the agencies of workers in contexts with different political trajectories: stable neoliberalism; stable popular reformism; conservative shift. Perspectives on workers’ organization in both countries are starkly different, with the Chilean labour movement facing a better situation. The social advances responded to processes of revitalization of the labour movement since the crisis of neoliberalism in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it is fair to argue that they were aimed at containing the rising discontent with neoliberal policies.
