Trade Unions and Sociotechnical Change: Examining Legal Mobilisation in the Retail Sector in Chile

ABSTRACT This article examines how trade unions in Chile adopted legal mobilisation to address a sociotechnical transformation agenda that triggered wage decline and work intensification. The proposed change involved the implementation of a Functional Flexibility Plan by a multinational retailer, facilitated by in‐store logistics and supermarket front‐end sales technologies. Connecting a Sociotechnical Approach with Employment Relations studies, and using longitudinal qualitative methodologies, the findings show how trade unions were able to circumvent collective bargaining difficulties through strategic litigation, organisational misbehaviour, and political lobbying. This demonstrates that legal mobilisation can be an effective strategy for addressing the labour‐related outcomes of sociotechnical change in a regulatory context where union bargaining power is weak and legal constraints limit negotiations over work organisation. However, in the absence of regulatory frameworks that formally incorporate trade union decision‐making on crucial issues, such as the design and implementation of new technologies, legal mobilisation remains reactive and confined to responding to the consequences of such changes for labour.