Adjudication and institutionalisation of the Portuguese system of industrial relations: the soft law of the International Labour Organization procedures for complaints and representations

Abstract

The conflict is a basic structural and integral element of both labour relations and labour law. The transnational solutions for labour conflicts have an increasing complementary role to national systems, mainly in the today’s context of globalisation and transnationalisation of industrial relations. For this purpose, the International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of transnational labour conflicts regulation and a supervising entity of core labour standards enforcement, has implemented supervisory mechanisms either special (complaints and representations) or regular (regular supervisory system). Drawing on the documentary analysis of all the complaints and representations procedures, we intend to clarify the relationship between Portugal and ILO, particularly after 1974. The use of this mechanism reveals emerging social tensions within industrial relations systems, as well as it shows the international projection of the conflicts of interest and expresses the demand for transnational solutions of national socio-legal conflicts. In the Portuguese case, the post 1974 period demonstrates several particularities, as its system of labour relations has been subject to the dynamics of the processes of democratic transition and consolidation, as well as to the re-institutionalisation of the system itself. Focusing on the special supervisory mechanisms we intend to understand ILO’s role in these dynamic of transformation and consolidation of the Portuguese system of industrial relations.