The union movement in Chile was persecuted during the military dictatorship and never regained its influence after the return to democracy in 1990: unionisation levels are currently below 10% (Solimano, 2011). It is recognition of that fact that is behind the current attempts to establish a working collective bargaining process in China and tripartite committees for social dialogue in Korea. Moreover, the mounting body of evidence from labour institutions has generally toned down the view (based on perfectly competitive labour market models) that labour regulations were the source of many woes, from informality to rigidity.