El Salvador
Organization responsible for the statistics
The statistics are collected by the Dirección General de Trabajo,
Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social, and compiled and
published by the Sección Estadística, Departmento de
Planificación, Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social.
Objectives and users
Not available.
Coverage
Strikes and lockouts
The statistics cover:
- constitutional or official strikes
Unofficial strikes, sympathetic strikes, political or protest
strikes, general strikes, work stoppages initiated by employers
and rotating or revolving strikes are not included, nor are
sit-ins, working to rule, go-slows or overtime bans.
Minimum threshold
Duration of at least two hours.
Economic activities
No particular branches of economic activity or sectors are
excluded.
Workers
Workers directly involved and workers indirectly involved. As
well as regular paid employees, the statistics cover temporary,
casual and seasonal workers, unpaid family workers, workers laid
off and workers absent on sick or annual leave.
No particular occupational groups are excluded.
Geographic areas
Whole country.
Types of data collected
- number of strikes
- number of economic units involved
- number of workers involved
- duration
- time not worked
- matter in dispute
Concepts and definitions
Strike
A collective work stoppage agreed upon by a number of workers
with a view to obtaining a specific objective.
Lockout (paro)
A total work stoppage ordered by an employer or an employers'
association in one or more undertakings or one or more
establishments.
These definitions come from the Labour Code, Article 527 and
Article 539 respectively.
Methods of measurement
Strikes and lockouts
The basic unit of measurement used to record a strike is the case
of dispute and the economic unit. The continuation of a strike
that is interrupted but later resumes, still due to the same case
of dispute, is counted as a new strike.
Economic units involved
The economic unit is the establishment or the economic activity.
The economic activity means the major activity of an employer's
workplace, the activity usually being determined by the product
sold or the services rendered, etc.
Workers involved
The number of workers involved is the highest number of workers
involved at any one time during the strike.
Duration
The duration is measured in calendar days (i.e. all days that the
strike lasts) from the date the strike began in the first
economic unit involved to the date it terminated in the last one.
Time not worked
Total time not worked is measured in hours (one day equivalent to
eight hours) as the product of the number of workers involved and
the duration. Time not worked is measured for all workers
involved, directly or indirectly. Overtime is not taken into
account.
Classifications
Cause of dispute
- wage increase
- negotiation of a collective agreement
- failure to abide by a collective agreement
- dismissal of workers
- various causes (2 or more of the given reasons above)
- other causes (lack of basic materials, adjustment of
schedules, expiry of contracts, payment of bonuses, solidarity
with other workers, etc.)
Branch of economic activity
The data are classified by branch of economic activity using the
International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC).
Reference period and periodicity
The statistics are compiled and published for periods of a year.
They refer to strikes beginning during the particular reference
period plus those continuing from the previous period.
Analytical measures
None.
Historical background of the series
Not available.
Documentation
Series available
Not available.
Bibliographic references
Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social: Boletín de
Estadísticas del Trabajo (annual);
Idem: Revista: Despertar Laboral (monthly).
Data published by the ILO
The number of strikes, the
number of workers involved and the number of days not worked, by
economic activity.
Confidentiality
Not available.
International standards
Not available.
Methods of data collection
There is a legal obligation applying to the trade unions to
report the occurrence of a strike to the Director General de
Trabajo of the Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social,
accompanied by the agreement voted upon in a secret ballot by no
less than 51 per cent of the workers concerned, including the
list of the strike committee.
The statistics published by the Ministerio de Trabajo y
Previsión Social in its Boletín de Estadísticas del
Trabajo only concern those strikes in which the Ministry has
intervened. Illegal ( huelgas de hecho) strikes, in which
the Ministry's arbitration has been requested, are not
necessarily reported.