A Comparative Analysis of ILO Convention No. 94 and the Procurement Law of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay

Procurement accounts for almost a third of government spending in OECD countries, about a quarter in Brazil and about a fifth in Colombia (OECD, 2025), and the work under these contracts is done by contractors' employees. ILO Convention No. 94 of 1949 requires the contract to stipulate that the contractor pays these workers no less, and gives them conditions no worse, than is customary for the same work in the same industry and region, and that the state checks compliance, penalises violators and, where necessary, withholds payments from the contractor. Of the five countries studied, Uruguay ratified the Convention in 1954 and Brazil in 1965, while Mexico told the ILO that general labour legislation protects workers' rights sufficiently. Yet in the procurement law of these countries the requirement to pay contractors' workers at the sector level is either absent or narrowed. We set out to learn which parts of the Convention appear in these countries' procurement law, whether records show how those rules are applied, and whether the pattern reflects ratification or the ways in which countries themselves protect contractors' workers. Data and method. We read the Convention and ILO Recommendation No. 84 adopted alongside it, the General Survey that the Committee of Experts devoted to the Convention in 2008, all of the Committee's comments on Uruguay and Brazil for 2008–2025, the procurement laws, regulations and standard documents in force in the five countries, decisions of the high courts and the available audit reports. We analysed whether each requirement of the Convention appears, in full or in part, in national legislation, in standard documents and in records of application. Principal findings. The countries that have not ratified the Convention, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, do not require contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing rate for the same work in the industry: at most they impose a general duty to comply with labour legislation and check that social security contributions have been paid. Only Uruguay and Brazil have such a requirement, and even they apply it only to some contracts. All five countries have at least partial checks on payments to workers and sanctions, but in Colombia and Mexico the checks cover only contributions and taxes. Conclusions. Checks and sanctions exist in all five countries, whether or not they have ratified the Convention. The requirement to pay contractors' workers no less than the industry norm, however, is set out only in the two countries that ratified the Convention. Where the requirement exists, it covers only wage rates or a single type of contract, or applies only when the contractor is selected: bids with wages below the sector level are rejected, but the contract itself does not oblige the contractor to pay workers at that level. For a contractor's worker in Argentina outside construction, in Colombia and in Mexico, this means that the state at best checks whether contributions have been paid for them and whether their wages have been paid, but not how much they are paid. The report is available in English, Spanish and Russian.