The Obsession: Exploiting Workers
By Juan J. Paz-y-Miño Cepeda: The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is credited with the phrase "corsi e ricorsi," according to which history should be interpreted as a succession of cycles that repeat themselves, although not in the same way, as there are always variations. Latin America is the region that best offers examples of Vico's vision. And Ecuador, precisely, is the exemplary country in this repetitive succession of cycles.
Since the mid-1980s and rampantly and unstoppably since the 1990s, neoliberal ideology has been established in Latin America. Among its slogans, it has sought to achieve labor "flexibility" or "flexisecurity" as something "modern" and progressive to promote business development and, consequently, the economy. Such a slogan captivated Latin American business elites, who have since waged a systematic campaign, supported by their mainstream media, to review long-standing workers' rights, curtail them, and even eliminate them, in addition to implementing new forms of contracting the workforce. The maximum eight-hour workday has been weakened, even without overtime or supplementary pay; permanent employment stability has been replaced by temporary contracts; facilities for unfair dismissal without severance pay have increased; unionization has also been strangled; the flouting of social security is scandalous; and abuse or arbitrariness in "personnel management" is a reality often experienced by workers themselves, today pompously described as "collaborators" and even "partners" of companies.
New contract modalities include hourly work, outsourcing, and even "uberized" work, as well as teleworking or "smart working." But in all countries where the new business ideology was implemented, working conditions have deteriorated and workers' historical rights have been violated, deteriorating the overall quality of life, as can be seen in reports from the International Labor Organization (ILO), ECLAC studies, and numerous academic publications (e.g., https://t.ly/MctC_ ; https://t.ly/jkUrP ; https://t.ly/k5sCo ).
The progressive governments of the early 21st century halted these neoliberal flexibilities. The social economies they initiated substantially improved the living conditions of the population, and, undoubtedly, those of workers. However, the conservative cycle that occurred almost everywhere has returned to the past to revive the old slogans of labor flexibility, now qualified by the assumptions that technical progress, the development of the internet and artificial intelligence, as well as the experience of the 2020 global COVID pandemic, have created the demands to definitively move toward new contract modalities devised by owners. And the framework of historical workers' rights is once again in the spotlight. This is a widespread phenomenon, except in countries with progressive governments, such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, which have rejected the neoliberal path to return to social economies.
In two years, Lula da Silva's government lifted 6 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty (https://t.ly/g-AK9); In Colombia, Gustavo Petro's government achieved something similar: 1.6 million people were lifted out of monetary poverty and 1.1 million out of extreme poverty, in addition to improving social and labor indicators (https://t.ly/qT3zD); and Mexico placed itself at the forefront of progressivism with Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, under whom multiple programs for the people were advanced, including their protection with "bonds" and pensions for different sectors of the population; labor rights were strengthened; public investment in goods and services grew; and, above all, a clear nationalist and sovereign policy was established, which has curbed the United States' interference so common in Latin America. In the region, there is not a single country capable of demonstrating such progress by following the entrepreneurial-neoliberal or libertarian path.
In Ecuador, this corsi e ricorsi is marked: the final two decades of the 20th century saw neoliberal advances; between 2007 and 2017, during the progressive cycle under President Rafael Correa, the push for a social economy of Buen Vivir (Good Living), in accordance with the 2008 Constitution; but from 2017 onward, the country's second "plutocratic era" was established, comparable to the first, between 1912 and 1925, when there were no labor rights, social security, a Ministry of Labor, income tax, state oversight institutions, or a central bank. In this new era, labor relations have regressed to a greater extent than in the 1990s.
Naturally, neither in the original neoliberal past nor in the present restoration of the same model has Ecuador moved toward an economy with development and social well-being, although it has moved toward one with a profound concentration of wealth, prosperity, and private accumulation, based on precarious working conditions and thereby increasing the exploitation of the working classes. This now includes state workers (bureaucracy), who are subject to layoffs unprecedented in the country's contemporary history, such as the recent dismissal of 5,000 workers (https://t.ly/eB-Ne), who went from one day to the next to full unemployment. Incidentally, all of this is subject to the IMF (https://shorturl.at/9Oqba).
Since the 1980s, I have addressed these issues in several books and numerous articles, so Vico's corsi e ricorsi fits with Ecuador's image. In particular, I have analyzed, with sufficient historical grounding, hourly work, which was implemented in 2000 by the Gustavo Noboa government (2000-2003) and which became a scandalous form of worker exploitation, to the point that the Constituent Assembly had to suspend it and expressly prohibit it in Article 327 of the 2008 Constitution, which also prohibited "all forms of precarious employment."
Discarding that Constitution or violating it through "mini-coups" has become the path taken by Ecuador's ruling elites. And the obsession with achieving hourly work is reborn once again, having already demonstrated the dire social consequences of its implementation. Despite the fact that the population rejected it in the April 2024 referendum held by Daniel Noboa's government (https://t.ly/GEY7n), he is now proposing a new popular consultation on the same issue, which will include seven questions that have provoked radical criticism from progressive sectors (https://shorturl.at/WKAQp).
In Latin America, the possibility of new progressive governments that will lift the neoliberal business model from the ruins of the past remains open. This is the hopeful "corsi." Meanwhile, several countries in the region remain captivated by the "ricorsi" of the past. Argentina and Ecuador are at the forefront of this return to economic conservatism, lacking social welfare.
History and Present
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