A/HRC/34/57 adjustment programmes implemented in the 1980s reportedly went along with the drastic declines in real wages in a number of developing countries. 38 Similarly, the labour share in relation to gross domestic product declined significantly in the course of the economic adjustment programme recently implemented in several eurozone countries, in particular Greece.39 34. Trade unions have also been weakened in countries undertaking economic adjustment. A study using data on 39 least developed countries, carried out during the second half of the 1990s, showed that the signing of an IMF loan arrangement and debt service was negatively associated with the level of unionization rates. 40 The privatization of public companies promoted by IMF and World Bank-driven adjustment programmes has, in several developing countries, such as India, furthered the fragmentation and weakening of local trade unions.41 Labour market reforms undertaken during the European economic crisis heavily affected collective bargaining in the countries concerned. For example, Greece saw a strong decrease in sectoral collective bargaining combined with the spread of company-level agreements by non-union organizations; in Romania, the 2011 labour law reforms heavily affected trade unions’ capacity to engage in effective collective bargaining at the national and sectoral levels;42 and in Portugal, the number of collective agreements adopted per year dropped dramatically between 2008 and 2012, as did the number of workers covered by those agreements. 43 There is the risk that, even if collective labour rights should at some point be restored, trade unions will be too weak to engage in meaningful negotiations with employers. In addition, there has often been a lack of consultation with social partners about relevant economic adjustment programmes. 35. That development has often been accompanied by a rise in the informal economy and an overall decrease in formal employment. For example, in Côte d’Ivoire, both unemployment and the workforce in the informal sector increased drastically under the structural adjustment programme implemented in the 1980s, while the privatization of the cocoa industry reportedly led to an increase in child labour in that industry, often under hazardous conditions. 44 In Malawi, overall formal employment and private-sector employment fell during the implementation of the structural adjustment programmes sponsored by the World Bank and IMF. In other countries, the privatization of public-sector companies also led to the replacement of stable jobs with decent working conditions by precarious jobs involving sub-contractors, which were not fully subject to the relevant 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 12 See, for Latin American and African countries, Ajit Kumar Singh, “Social consequences of new economic policies: with particular reference to levels of living of working class population”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 28, No. 7 (13 February 1993), pp. 281 with further references. Magoulios George, Kydros Dimitrios, Athianos Stergios, “The economic crisis (2008) and effects on income: the case of Greece”, Procedia Economics and Finance, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 35-36. Nathan D. Martin and David Brady, “Workers of the less developed world unite? A multilevel analysis of unionization in less developed countries”, American Sociological Review, vol. 72, No. 4 (2007), pp. 568 and 579. See, with regard to India, Sasmita Palo, Nayantara Padhi and Sweta Panigrahi, “Labour standards in the aftermath of structural adjustment programme: the case of India”, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, No. 3 (2000), pp. 389. Aurora Trif, “Surviving frontal assault on collective bargaining institutions in Romania: the case of manufacturing companies”, European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 22, No. 3 (2016), p. 222. Isabel Távora and Pilar González, “Labour market regulation and collective bargaining in Portugal during the crisis: continuity and change”, European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 22, No. 3 (2016), p. 257. International Labor Rights Fund, “The World Bank and IMF policies in Cote d’Ivoire: impact on child labor in the cocoa industry” (Washington D.C., 2002), p. 4.