DecentWorkCheck: Labour Rights Awareness and Compliance in 152 Countries

Abstract

This paper presents a new way of comparing labour market regulations worldwide, i.e., through worker rights perspective. It documents a new tool, called DecentWorkCheck and uses it to analyse de-jure labour market institutions around 48 themes in 152 countries of the world. This self-assessment tool uses substantive elements of the decent work agenda and converts these into legal indicators/questions that workers can easily respond to and know whether they are employed in decent working conditions.

The comparative work aims to raise awareness among the masses about their rights and obligations at the workplace. The work presents a great opportunity to enhance worker awareness about their rights and can be expanded to further countries. The work is equally useful for academics, employers and policy makers worldwide. It maps 33 labour law indicators for 152 countries of the world and analyses labour law changes for more than 70 countries over the last five years (2012-17).

The paper contends that compliance with labour legislation can be improved by increasing labour regulation awareness among the masses including workers and employers. WageIndicator’s work on labour law database creates this opportunity to increase awareness on labour rights in the most cost effective way. In 2016 alone, 39.5 million Internet users visited labour law pages on 92 WageIndicator country websites.