The Concertación Governments and Labor policies: The political uses of the transition, 2006-2008

Abstract

The article aims to examine labor and social protection policies and discussions during Michelle Bachelet's first government, as a temporary juncture to analyze how social and political actors understood the Chilean political process. Three lustrums after the return to democracy, the conflict of meanings about the Chilean transition was evident in the actions of Osvaldo Andrade, Minister of Labor from March 2006 to December 2008. It is hypothesized that their positions represented a form of political use of the meanings of the transition, defining it as a pending issue whose contents should be democratization and the establishment of new frameworks of social justice in the country, collaborating to create a critical narrative to the debates on the economic model and social justice in the country.