WageIndicator Labour Law Database Manual and Codebook

Abstract

1 Introducing the COBRA system
1.1 Aims of COBRA

COBRA is the web-based system for the WageIndicator Labour Law database.
COBRA facilitates three steps: • uploading of texts about labour law in different countries, written in understandable language by a labour law specialist • annotating and coding of these texts by saving numerical provisions and data in a database • publishing of the texts on the WageIndicator national websites. COBRA generates web pages with full text about labour law in different countries. The content of these pages are detailed in Section 3. COBRA also generates a monthly download of the coded content of the Labour Law Database. The content of this data download is detailed in Appendix 1. 

1.2 Countries and languages in COBRA
COBRA is designed such that texts from any country and any language can be uploaded, whereby the COBRA dashboard is in English, and so is the coding scheme. For the time being, the dashboard, the coding scheme and this manual will be available only in English. However, when published online as Labour Law pages, texts are all in national language (and an English master version is stored).

1.3 Uploading and coding the Labour Law
WageIndicator labour law specialist Iftikhar Ahmad and his team in Islamabad (Pakistan) collect all available information about the Labour Law in a country, following a structure of 13 main topics: Work & Wages, Compensation, Annual Leave & Holidays, Employment Security, Employment Security, Family Responsibilities, Maternity & Work, Health & Safety, Sickness and Employment Injury Benefits, Social Security, Equal Treatment at work, Child Labour, Forced Labour and Social Dialogue. Each topic is subdivided into three or more subtopics. The labour law information is explained in an easily understandable language, but at the same time it provides reference to the legal texts (quoting sections and articles of law). These texts are then uploaded in the COBRA-program, both in English and in the national language(s). For each topic, Cobra provides a set of questions to be answered: some require answers with numerical data, others are multiple-choice answers. Figure 1 shows the Labour Law dashboard of the platform. The COBRA coders’ platform is password protected. The director of WageIndicator Foundation assigns passwords.