We are a country that, in the last four decades, navigated in an environment of super flexibility in terms of labor issues, almost everything was allowed in the framework of productivity and competitiveness. The reform came to fundamentally modify, not only the rules, but more importantly, the mentality with which we conceive the worker in the productive system.
Therefore, asking if it is mandatory for a company to have a union is, in itself, a way of violating this change.
Let’s first analyze the root of the question; For years, 85% of companies lived with protection contracts, which really means that we live in union-free environments, where white unionism consolidated a business model aimed at “shielding” the entry of new collective representatives of workers, so that neither one nor the other exercised the defense of the rights of the people within the framework of the balance with the possibilities and results of the companies.
So the improvement or not of the conditions depended on the will of the company administration, pressured by the rotation of workers or motivated by a genuine interest in achieving a productive and positive work environment.
Today the rules change, putting the will of the worker at the center of the process, which currently generates the greatest challenge, because that will today is moved by very diverse interests, even politicized, which put a very high rate of uncertainty in the future of revisions of Collective Contracts and the sustainability of companies.
We hear campaigns inviting workers to vote negatively in revisions or legitimization of contracts, where it is not clear if there is really an interest in claiming and improving conditions, or if it is only a mechanism for new actors to enter their representation. Time will tell if they have a truly social purpose or it’s just a way for the business to change hands.