Power resources, institutional legacy and labour standards transformation: Lessons from two developing countries

Abstract

This article assesses the political dynamics behind labour standards reform attempts and their divergent outcomes in Lebanon and Tunisia during the neoliberal era according to a success/failure and flexibility/security configuration. It emphasises the interconnection of three power resources. Institutional legacies mattered for organised labour’s influence on these reforms. Having already had access to formal channels of decision-making since the 1970s, Tunisian labour effectively used these channels during the 1990s reforms. Such channels were not historically well-developed for Lebanese labour and were critical in the reform failure. Furthermore, thanks to its ideational power (i.e. legitimacy), Tunisian organised labour was part of the political coalition of reform. Consequently, Tunisian labour was successful in gaining some job security privileges in exchange for flexibility. Conversely, Lebanese organised labour lacked such legitimacy, which contributed to their exclusion from the political coalition. Instead, employers used their informal channels (e.g. networks) with the political coalition’s elites to halt job security reform.