The outsourcing and the responses of the judiciary

The cases of Argentina and Brazil

Abstract

Outsourcing is a phenomenon that has greatly intensified in the Latin American world of work, especially in Argentina and Brazil. In this sense, the labor power, within the institutional legal reality of each country, has been an institution of great importance in determining the limits in considering the legality or not of this form of hiring. This article analyzes the decisions of the Argentinean and Brazilian labor courts on labor decisions involving outsourced workers in different sectors of the economy, focusing on the following question: the labor courts, within the legal parameters of each country analyzed, put “brakes” on the phenomenon of outsourcing? I analyzed 506 decisions of the Brazilian Superior Labor Court and 310 decisions of the Argentine National Chamber of Labor Appeals, covering the period 2000 to 2020. It is expected with this article to analyze the main differences and similarities of the labor courts of the two countries.