Co-enforcing Labor standards: the unique contributions of state and worker organizations in Argentina and the United States

Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between formal regulations and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street-level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contributions of worker organizations and, as a result, overlook opportunities for co-enforcing labor standards, a key element of labor inspection. By contrast, we develop a framework to analyze the relationships between worker organizations and state regulators that underpin co-enforcement. We ground this framework empirically in comparative cases, set in Argentina and the United States, presenting two cases of co-enforcement in highly different institutional contexts. In so doing, we seek to illuminate key attributes of labor inspection and guide attempts to enhance enforcement by forging partnerships between regulators and worker organizations.