The institutional environment and its influence on political options to Protect Winnipeg’s Female garments Workers against the impact of globalization

The principal objective of this paper is to identify the relationship between the re­sults of the Canadian policies implemented to protect female workers against the impact of globalization on the garment industry and the institutional setting in which this labour market is immersed in Winnipeg. This research paper begins with a brief summary of the institutional theory appro­ach that sheds light on the analysis of the effects of institutions on the policy options to protect female workers of the Winnipeg garment industry. Next, this paper identi­fies the set of beliefs, formal procedures, routines, norms and conventions that cha­racterize the institutional environment of the female workers of Winnipeg’s garment industry. Subsequently, this paper descri­bes the impact of free trade policies on the garment industry of Winnipeg. Afterward, this paper presents an analysis of the ba­rriers that the institutional features of the garment sector in Winnipeg can set to the successful achievement of policy options addressed to protect the female workforce of this sector. Three policy options are considered: ethical purchasing; training/retraining programs and social engage­ment support for garment workers; and protection of migrated workers through promoting and facilitating bonds between Canada’s trade unions and trade unions of the labour sending countries. Finally, this paper concludes that the formation of isolated cultural groups inside of factories; the belief that there is gender and race discrimination on the part of the garment industry management against workers; the powerless social conditions of immi­grant women; the economic rationality of garment factories’ managers; and the lack of political will on the part of Canada and the labour sending countries to set effective bilateral agreements to protect migrate wor­kers, are the principal barriers that divide the actors involved in the garment industry in Winnipeg. This division among the prin­cipal actors of Winnipeg’s garment industry impedes the change toward more efficient institutions and, hence, the successful achievement of policy options addressed to protect women workers. 

Advances and limitations in the attention to the problems of housing and urban land in Mexico. An approach from the legal-institutional frame

In this work we analyze the reforms carried out by the Mexican state in the nineties of the 20th century, in the items concerning the policies of housing and urban land, based on an exhaustive review of the main actions, programs and changes in the legal and institutional frame that applies for each of these fields. The nineties represent a "breaking point" in the way the State considers the satisfaction of the right to the housing and attends the offer of urbanized land for a tidy and sustainable urban development. In this period of time, the approach of direct intervention in developing and financing housing and creation of land reserves has changed into another one, ruled by the logic of the market. The balance to the first decade of the 21st century is ambiguous, as neither the housing policy has solved the housing shortage for low-income population, nor the land policy has eliminated the illegal urban growth.

Código de ética judicial en Argentina. ¿Una respuesta a las demandas de transparencia de la sociedad?

El proyecto de Código de Ética Judicial, que emerge de la convocatoria de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación (2004) y promueve una reforma judicial, es analizado desde un diagnóstico que enfatiza el carácter cultural de causas sistémicas de la crisis político-económica de diciembre 2001 en Argentina, donde la matriz institucional y los mecanismos de selección/financiamiento de los partidos políticos destacan la presencia de “clientelismo” y “corrupción”, determinando –con la “anomia social”– la llamada “corrupción gris”. Tales variables definen un patrón cultural de “labilidad” en los límites entre lo permitido-no permitido y lo ético-no ético.Desde los años noventa, la tendencia a judicializar el conflicto político, y una Magistratura con ausencia de debate interno y de activismo judicial, tornaron oportuno analizarla desde cinco ejes temáticos: 1) el debate orgánico dado en la Magistratura; 2) el marco general legislativo; 3) la Magistratura como exponente de valores culturales; 4) la transferencia de responsabilidades del ámbito político al judicial; 5) la mediatización de la labor del juez.De las conclusiones deviene crucial este enfoque que indaga las características de esta herramienta que la propia corporación judicial le propone a la sociedad: el Código de Ética Judicial.-----The Code of Judicial Ethics bill, which has emerged from the Argentine Supreme Court call in 2004 and which promotes a judicial reform, will be analized here from a point of view emphasizing the cultural nature of the general cause of the political and financial crisis that took place in December 2001 in Argentina, where the institutional matrix and the political parties’ mechanisms for selecting candidates and raising funds for campaign financing show that there exists a kind of ‘clientism’ and ‘corruption’, which brings about –within a state of ‘social anomy’– the so-called ‘grey corruption.’ These variables define a cultural pattern which is characterized by a ‘general state of uncertainty’ when it comes to deciding what is allowed or not allowed, and what is ethical or unethical.The tendency present since the nineties to judicialize the political conflict, together with a judiciary where there is neither internal debate nor judicial activism, have both made it appropriate to analize this matter from five points of discussion: (1) the internal debate in the judiciary; (2) the general legislative framework; (3) the judiciary as an exponent of cultural values; (4) the handing over of responsibilities from the political sphere to the judicial one; and (5) the media interfering with the judge’s work.From the resultant conclusions, we will infer that this approach becomes crucial, an approach that looks into the features of this tool that the judiciary itself proposes to the society: the Code of Judicial Ethics.