Introduction

The study of labor policies in this chapter diverges from the other aspects of public policy dealt with in this work for various reasons. It is a fact that public policy affects social sectors and interests that seek to exploit or impede its implementation, and, as such, it is always modified in practice. Nevertheless, in the context of weak institutionalization such as the Mexican labor environment, the gap between the intended and the actual effects of public policy tends to be greater. This is accentuated by the fact that labor policies directly affect social actors with well-defined conflicting interests and with the ability to take action, support or veto these measures, particularly when they are immersed in corporatist relationships that prevent the expression of their differences when adopting such policies.

The problem that public policies face in our society lies not only in the difficulties in finding and imposing a coherent design from the decision makers’ point of view, or in unfulfilled expectations. It also lies in the obstacles they face in their implementation. We therefore consider the most suitable analysis perspective to be that of the sociology of public action, which views the implementation of policies as “a vast interactive game” in which political relations come into play. “Public action is a power relation, it is inseparable from the domination of authority” (Lascoumes y Le Gales, 2014, pp 28-29), and, by extension, it is therefore inseparable from alignment with, and resistence to, this domination.

Rather than studying the lack of coherence and rationality of decision makers (Lascoumes and Le Gales, 2014), we focus on political and social actors, their interest in public policies in the labor sphere, and their capacity (or lack thereof) to change or maintain the status quo. In this sphere of public policy, the corporatist nature of labor relations between the state, trade unions and employers is not very compatible with the use of political analysis as a way of orienting the positions of actors facing institutional change. In particular, in the predominant dependence of trade unions on the government, and under the new economic model designed to promote exports, the increasing pressure on them to respond to firms’ needs, weakens (if not annuls) the quality of representation.