As discussed in the OECD accession review of labour market, social and migration policies in Colombia (OECD, 2016[1]), Colombia has ratified all fundamental ILO conventions and recognises freedom of association in the Constitution and Labour Code. However, trade union density and collective bargaining coverage are very low compared to OECD standards and significant obstacles remain to the free association of workers in trade unions and the recognition of unions by employers. The Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC) made a series of recommendations in its 2018 Formal Opinion on Colombia’s accession to the OECD to strengthen collective bargaining in the country, see Box 4.1 for an overview.
OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social Policies: Colombia 2026
1. Build a constructive framework for social dialogue, by:
Promoting a two‑tier system of sectoral and firm-level bargaining, by elaborating the regulations on sectoral bargaining in the Labour Code.
Eliminating the option to negotiate collective pacts.
Extending collective agreements automatically to all employees of a company, not only to the members of the signatory trade unions (erga omnes).
Requiring multiple trade unions in the same company to form a bargaining team to ensure a single collective agreement.
Giving the right to strike to higher-level trade union organisations.
Ensuring that all workers, irrespective of the legal status under which they work, can join trade unions in practice.
Systematically collecting data on collective bargaining to track evolution.
2. In addition, Colombia should reflect on alternatives to the full prohibition of strikes in essential services (e.g. strikes conditioned on a minimum-service requirement) and consider reintroducing mediation in the collective dispute resolution process.
3. With better social dialogue and reinforced collective bargaining, Colombia could consider a gradual adjustment of the very high minimum wage to bring it back to its original role of wage floor instead of wage norm.
Source: OECD (2018[2]), Accession of Colombia to the OECD: Formal Opinion of the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC), unpublished document.
Trade union density in Colombia was 4.9% in 2025, the lowest among OECD countries, and even lower than in the Latin American OECD accession candidate countries Peru, Argentina and Brazil (Figure 4.1). About half of all trade union members in Colombia (48%) are public sector workers, which brings the trade union density in the public sector (35%) relatively close to the OECD average for that sector (41%). In contrast, the difference is starker for the private sector, which has a trade union density of 2.7% in Colombia, compared to 10.1% in the OECD on average (OECD, 2025[3]). Looking at formal workers only, trade union density rises slightly to 6.8%.
Union membership as a proportion of employees, 2025 or latest available year
Note: Union density is either derived from household labour force surveys, social surveys or employer-employee data surveys, or based on the compilation of trade union membership statistics.
Source: OECD/AIAS database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts (ICTWSS), Version 2.0, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecdaias-ictwss-database.html.
As described in detail in the OECD’s second post-accession review on Colombia (OECD, 2024[4]), an early version of the labour market reform proposal that was submitted in August 2023 contained a series of provisions on collective bargaining in Colombia, including the regulation of sectoral bargaining, the right to strike for higher-level trade union organisations (federations and confederations), the prohibition of collective pacts, and the requirement for multiple trade unions in the same company to form a bargaining team. Those provisions were however dropped during the debates in the House of Representatives before the project continued to its second legislative stage, the Senate.
That said, the final version of the new labour law (Law 2466 of 2025, see Chapter 2 for an overview) does incorporate a few elements relevant to reduce anti‑union practices, even if only in an indirect and preventive manner. For instance, Article 16 limits employers’ powers of subordination by requiring respect for workers’ dignity and explicitly prohibiting discrimination, including on the basis of trade union activity. This provision is important in tackling early forms of anti‑union hostility, such as harassment or retaliation, and enables labour authorities to investigate and sanction such practices. Article 18 reinforces this approach by embedding protections against workplace violence, harassment, and discrimination, thereby contributing to a safer environment for union activity. Articles 62 and 67 play a more indirect role. Article 62, on statutes of limitations, can improve access to justice for workers facing anti‑union discrimination by allowing more time to bring claims, while Article 67 strengthens enforcement and oversight capacities, supporting more effective detection and sanctioning of anti‑union practices.
According to the OECD/AIAS database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts (ICTWSS),1 there were 5 857 individual trade unions registered in Colombia in 2022, a doubling from 2010, when 2 936 trade unions were active. Over the same period, trade union membership increased by only one fourth, revealing considerable union fragmentation. Such fragmentation is to some extent driven by competition among trade unions, but mostly the result of trade union members searching for protection against dismissal (OECD, 2016[1]). Trade union immunity (fuero sindical) is granted to the trade union’s founders and initial members for a maximum of six months, as well as to elected board members of trade unions and higher-level trade union organisations. It implies that they cannot be fired or transferred, and their working conditions cannot be downgraded, without just cause as determined by a labour judge.
To avoid the adverse effects of having multiple collective bargaining processes, the OECD recommended regulations to encourage multiple trade unions in the same company to form a bargaining team and strive for a single collective agreement (Box 4.1). This approach is now mandatory for the public sector collective bargaining process since February 2024, through Decree 243 on the procedures for negotiation and dispute resolution with public employee organisations (Función pública, 2024[5]). Under this decree, multiple public employee organisations are obligated to unify their demands into a single request (pliego) before negotiations can proceed.
The decree also establishes a multilevel negotiation structure – national, sectoral, territorial, and singular – and clarifies negotiation competencies across different levels of government. Salaries and benefits, for instance, can only be negotiated at the national level, while working time and employment conditions can be discussed at all levels. Representativeness becomes a central requirement: unions must provide certified membership information, and failure to do so suspends participation rights until compliance. Overall, the decree seeks to enhance coherence, transparency, and democratic legitimacy in public‑sector bargaining by standardising procedures, consolidating union representation, and clarifying negotiation competencies across different levels of government. Since the publication of Decree 243 in 2024, there has been an increase in the number of collective agreements signed in the public sector (Table 4.1), both at the national and regional level. As a result of collective agreements signed in 2025, more than 1.25 million public sector workers benefited from a 7% salary increase in 2025 (Ministry of Labour, 2026[6]).
More recently, on 6 March 2026, sector-level collective bargaining was also introduced in the private sector. Decree 234 follows OECD recommendations to elaborate regulations on sectoral bargaining (see Box 4.1) and allows unions and employers to negotiate labour conditions across entire industries rather than only company by company. Under the new framework, unions and employer organisations can negotiate agreements at sector level to establish minimum wage levels above the legal minimum, working conditions, benefits and protections, and sector-wide labour standards. The aim is to increase the bargaining power of workers and unions and standardise labour conditions across industries. The decree also allows for mechanisms where workers who benefit from sectoral agreements can contribute financially to unions, even if they are not members. The government argues that this ensures unions can finance negotiations that benefit the whole sector, while critics say it may affect the freedom not to join a union.
Number of collective agreements in the private and public sector, 2017-2025
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
Systematic data collection on social dialogue
Internationally comparable statistics on social dialogue and collective bargaining for Colombia remain scarce as the country’s information available in the OECD/AIAS database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts (ICTWSS) is limited. Colombia has been working on an electronic trade union registration system (Sistema de Información de Archivo Sindical, SIAS), but it is still not fully operational.
Extension of collective agreements within firms
Unlikely in many OECD countries, collective agreements in Colombia are only extended to all employees of a company if the trade union that negotiated the contract represents more than one‑third of the company’s workforce. This issue was highlighted in the OECD Review of Labour Market and Social Policies in Colombia in 2016 (OECD, 2016[1]) and has been reiterated in each post-accession review.
Erga omnes clauses (literally in Latin, “towards everybody”) are used in 22 OECD countries to extend the terms set in a collective agreement to all workers, and not only to the members of signatories unions (OECD, 2017[7]). Such clauses are usually embedded in the law. Even in countries where agreements are legally binding only for members of the signatory trade unions, employers often voluntarily provide the same or similar conditions for all employees within the company (sometimes because employers do not know who is a union member). Erga omnes clauses simplify the system (since the same terms apply to all workers), increase fairness, limit rivalries and help social peace and reduce transaction costs. Yet, they may represent a disincentive for workers to become members of a union (a typical free‑rider problem). In Colombia, this issue is addressed by a clause in the law that obliges non-unionised workers who benefit from collective regulations to pay a fee to the unions for the duration of the collective agreement.
Collective pacts
The Colombian legal framework allows employers to negotiate and reach collective pacts with non-unionised workers as long as the trade unions that are present in the company represent less than one‑third of the company’s workforce. While employers are not allowed to offer better conditions in the collective pacts than those already agreed upon in the collective agreements with the trade unions in their company, the potential misuse of collective pacts with non-unionised workers can undermine the work of trade unions in companies and prevent the emergence of new unions. For instance, employers have used the promise of a collective accord to entice workers to resign from the union, leaving membership below the one‑third threshold and making such agreements legal (OECD, 2016[1]).
Despite several attempts to prohibit the use of collective pacts as requested by ELSAC (Box 4.1) – a first time in 2017, as described in the OECD’s first post-accession review (OECD, 2022[8]) and a second time with an earlier version of the labour reform, see discussion above – collective pacts continued to be used in Colombia. Over the period 2017-2025, an average of 150 collective pacts per year were signed with non-unionised workers (Figure 4.2).
Number of collective pacts signed with non-unionised workers, 2017-2025
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
The misuse of collective pacts remains an issue. Over the past four years, the Labour Inspectorate took a total of 47 administrative actions for the improper use of collective pacts (Table 4.2). The use of a collective pact or a voluntary benefit plan to directly or indirectly prevent union membership was observed in 44 cases, while the signing of a collective pact when the company has a union or unions that bring together more than one‑third of the workers was registered in 3 cases.
Number of administrative actions for the improper use of collective pacts, 2022-2025
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
Right to strike
The 2016 OECD Review of Labour Market and Social Policies in Colombia noted that the right to strike in Colombia is overly strict due to the existence of legal prohibitions and restrictive clauses in labour legislation (OECD, 2016[1]). First, in contrast to most OECD countries where strikes can be declared in an industry, the Colombian Labour Code forbids trade union federations and confederations to organise strikes. Second, Colombia falls into the group of the more restrictive OECD Member countries that consider strikes are illegal when disputes arise in services considered essential. Other OECD countries tend to have a less restrictive list of sectors of public interest or have introduced the principle of minimum service provision in essential services. Third, a provision in the Labour Code gives the Ministry of Labour the right to exert pressure on the bargaining parties to set up arbitration and, after 60 days of strike action, a compulsory arbitration tribunal is set up. Such compulsory arbitration is in contrast with practices in many OECD countries (see next section).
The Ministry of Labour does not keep a record of the strikes carried out by trade unions. However, the labour inspectorate certifies the existence or not of a collective cessation of activities that generates a disturbance in the ordinary course of a company’s operations (Table 4.3).
Requests for collective cessation of activities registered by the Labour Inspectorate, 2020-2025
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
Mediation in industrial disputes
Colombia has a well-functioning conciliation body to solve large labour conflicts, but the broader dispute resolution system continues to focus solely on mandatory arbitration and labour courts, while more constructive conflict management through conciliation and mediation is missing.
Large‑scale disputes in the areas of freedom of association, right to organise and collective bargaining (related to ILO Conventions 87, 98, 151 and 154) can be submitted to the Special Committee for the Handling of Conflicts referred to the ILO (CETCOIT). It is a well-respected committee, composed of representatives of trade union federations, employer organisations and the government, and chaired by an independent facilitator appointed by the Permanent Commission for the Co‑ordination of Wage and Labour Policies. The function of CETCOIT is to seek formulas for settlement and rapprochement between the parties based on mutual understanding and respect among the actors of tripartism who have conflicts related to the right to freedom of association. Of the 285 cases that were closed between 2012 (when a first independent facilitator was appointed) and 2022, an agreement was reached in 67% of cases (Ministry of Labour, 2024[9]). Between 2022 and 2024, the process stalled due to the delay in the appointment of a new facilitator, which resulted in an increase in the number of open cases from 45 in 2023 to 88 at the end of 2025. Since the appointment of a new facilitator in September 2024 and two additional lawyers to strengthen the committee, 10 cases have been closed.
For conflicts related to public and essential services and for conflicts that did not obtain the absolute majority vote of the company’s workforce (a requirement to organise a strike, see previous section), arbitration is the only option if the conflict cannot be solved through direct negotiation. Arbitration is also mandatory after 60 days of strike action. The arbitration tribunal for collective conflicts is composed of three members: a representative from the trade union, a representative from the company and a third person, the arbiter. In the past three years, the arbitration tribunal received an average of 171 requests per year. While the number of tribunals convened increased radically, the share of reached agreements has seen a decrease (Table 4.4).
As recommended during Colombia’s accession process (see Box 4.1) and recently reiterated by Le Bouthillier, Torres and Ovalle Diaz (2022[10]), the elaboration of a broader dispute resolution system beyond CETCOIT could help to build more productive and sound labour relations in Colombia. Conciliation and mediation are frequently used in OECD countries to solve collective labour conflicts. While the terms conciliation and mediation are frequently used as synonyms, there is a slight difference in that conciliation tends to be a more informal process, where conflicting parties participate voluntarily and search with support of a third party for solutions (Euwema et al., 2019[11]). Mediation is often considered as a next step, more formal and typically used when conflicts are more escalated and previous attempts to facilitate were unsuccessful. A neutral third party (the mediator) helps the parties communicate, clarify their positions, and explore compromise solutions. The mediator does not impose a decision – rather, the goal is to rebuild trust and enable a mutually acceptable outcome. This step is especially useful in preserving long-term working relationships. Arbitration, by contrast, is more decisive. An independent arbitrator (or panel) hears the arguments from both sides and then issues a binding (or sometimes non-binding) decision. Its purpose is to resolve disputes when negotiations and mediation have failed, ensuring that conflicts do not escalate or lead to prolonged strikes or disruptions.
Euwema et al. (2019[11]) described in great detail the different systems of conciliation and mediation in 12 European countries and 5 non-European countries, which can provide inspiration for the Colombian Government to develop conciliation and mediation procedures. The authors observe a clear trend towards the promotion of voluntary approaches, in part related to the lower costs and fast resolution that these practices often achieve, but also because they facilitate the building, restoration and maintenance of constructive relations between the parties in the long run. Trade union federations in Colombia also mentioned a collaboration with Norway and the Universidad Javeriana to develop protocols for an improved dialogue between employers and trade unions, reflecting the desire to build more constructive relations.
Number of arbitration tribunals for collective conflicts convened and resolved, 2023-2025
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
In January 2026, Colombia implemented a substantial increase in the statutory minimum wage, raising it by 23% to COP 1 750 905 (around EUR 403) – the largest annual increase in two decades (Figure 4.3, Panel A). The magnitude of the adjustment was significantly higher than what would typically be expected based on the usual determinants used in Colombia’s minimum wage negotiations, such as inflation, productivity and economic growth, as well as the wage contribution to national income (see Box 4.2 for a description of Colombia’s annual minimum wage setting process). In 2025, inflation stood at around 5.3%, total factor productivity growth and the wage contribution to national income were estimated at approximately 0.91% and 4.46%, while economic growth reached 2.9% in 2025. The increase in the minimum wage was thus significantly above the sum of the regular indicators (13.6%), it was also higher than the increase proposed by employers (7.1%) and trade unions (16%). Instead, the 2026 adjustment closely followed estimates of a “living wage” presented by the ILO to the Permanent Commission for the Co‑ordination of Wage and Labour Policies at the beginning of the yearly negotiation process around the minimum wage – following a methodology the ILO has used in several other countries to estimate the needs of workers and their families (ILO, 2025[12]).
The recent increase is part of a broader pattern of strong minimum wage growth in recent years. Between 2023 and 2026, the minimum wage rose by an accumulated total of approximately 75% (Figure 4.3, Panel A). The increase in the transportation allowance – a benefit granted to employees who earn up to two monthly minimum wages and intended to help them cover transportation costs from home to the workplace – was even stronger, at 113% cumulatively over the period 2023‑2026, raising its relative weight in the workers total labour income (Figure 4.3, Panel B).
Despite these large increases, the level of the Colombian minimum wage remains relatively low in international comparison when expressed in USD purchasing power parity. Compared with OECD countries, Colombia’s nominal hourly minimum wage still ranks among the lowest (Figure 4.4).
Panel A: Minimum wage in Colombian pesos (left axis) and annual increases (right axis) and Panel B: Weight of the transport allowance in the total salary of minimum wage workers, 2007-2026
Note: The transportation allowance is a benefit granted to employees who earn up to two monthly minimum wages and intended to help them cover transportation costs from home to the workplace. The annual increase is negotiated simultaneously with the minimum wage.
Source: Data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
Colombia determines its minimum wage annually through tripartite negotiation in the Permanent Commission for the Co‑ordination of Wage and Labour Policies, consisting of government representatives, trade union federations and employment associations. Several macroeconomic and labour‑market indicators are considered in the negotiations, including inflation, productivity and economic growth, as well as the wage contribution to national income.
The inclusion of the wage share as a statutory parameter of the minimum wage setting is uncommon among OECD countries and explicitly embeds a functional distribution objective (labour versus capital share) into Colombia’s minimum wage. In contrast, minimum wage setting mechanisms in other OECD countries usually include a combination of price developments (inflation), general wage trends (average/median wage growth and collective bargaining outcomes), labour market conditions (employment/unemployment and productivity developments), as well as expert recommendations (like the Low Pay Commission in the United Kingdom and Ireland or the Fair Work Commission in Australia) (Eurofound, 2022[13]).
If no consensus is reached by Colombia’s tripartite body by the end of the year, the government sets the wage by decree, which must be technically justified to comply with legal standards. Since 1999, the yearly increase cannot be lower than the inflation rate of the past year by constitutional mandate. Courts can review or suspend decrees if the government is judged to have exceeded its authority, which happened in early 2026 when the 23% increase was suspended, yet reinstated through the publication of a new presidential decree in February 2026.
Nominal hourly minimum wage in 2024 USD PPP for Jan 2021, Jan 2023, and Jan 2026
Note: Purchasing power parity (PPP) is based on household final consumption expenditure. Minimum wages are converted on an hourly basis by assuming employees usually work 40 hours per week for Belgium, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and Türkiye, 45 hours per week for Chile, 48 hours per week for Costa Rica, and eight hours usually work per day for Greece, Mexico and Spain. For Colombia, the hourly minimum wage is derived from the statutory monthly minimum wage by applying the legal maximum weekly working time as set out in Law 2 101 of 2021 (amending Article 161 of the Labour Code), which gradually reduces the standard workweek from 48 to 42 hours between July 2023 and July 2026. For details about Canada (weighted) and the United States (weighted), see The OECD wage bulletin (OECD, 2026[14]). OECD (Median) is the median values across the 30 OECD countries shown except Colombia* and the United States (weighted).
*: minimum wage including the transport allowance (auxilio de transporte).
Source: OECD calculations based on national data; OECD Data Explorer, and OECD Data Explorer, “Annual Purchasing Power Parities and exchange rates”, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/41e (accessed on 26 February 2026).
The low absolute level of the minimum wage compared to other OECD countries and its potential role in reducing poverty is the main argument of the government for the considerable yearly increases (Ministry of Labour, 2026[6]). While minimum wage increases can indeed play an important role in protecting workers’ purchasing power – especially during periods of high inflation as discussed in OECD (2022[15]) – the database with Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Household (KIIbIH) compiled by the OECD Development Centre and forthcoming report on Securing the livelihoods of informal workers in times of global changes shows that more than 80% of the working poor in Colombia are informal workers (OECD Development Centre, 2026[16]). They are thus not covered by minimum wage increases. Instead, recent reductions in poverty mostly result from solid economic growth and an expansion and maturation of social policies.
The strong focus on the minimum wage in Colombia should be understood in the broader institutional context of limited collective bargaining. With few alternative channels available to improve wages and working conditions, trade unions often view the minimum wage as the main policy lever through which they can raise labour standards. As a result, minimum wage negotiations carry particularly high stakes in Colombia.
However, the impact of strong repeated increases on the wage distribution is overlooked in this process. The ratio of the minimum wage to the median wage (see Box 4.3 for a discussion on the indicator) is very high and has increased significantly in recent years, rising from around 82% in 2014 to approximately 92% in 2024 (Figure 4.5, Panel A). Colombia’s minimum-median wage ratio is the highest among OECD countries (Figure 4.6).
Note: Panel A: Full-time workers only. Panel B: All workers.
Source: Panel A: Extractions from the OECD Earnings Distribution Database (EDD) based on monthly earnings from the Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) of Colombia. Panel B: Data presented by the Ministry of Labour in its sixth post-accession review (Ministry of Labour, 2026[6]).
The high ratio suggests a significant compression of the wage distribution at the lower end and reflects structural features of the labour market, including the weak bargaining power of many workers and the limited coverage of collective bargaining agreements in the private sector. Negotiated wage scales above the minimum wage therefore adjust more slowly to inflation than the statutory minimum wage, which implies an outsized role of the minimum wage in shaping the overall wage structure. By narrowing pay differentials among low-paid jobs, this compression may also reduce incentives for early career progression and skill acquisition. Such risk is clearly visible among university graduates, who have seen a relative decrease in their wage compared to the minimum wage between 2021 and 2025 (Figure 4.5, Panel B). The same observation holds with graduates with technological and professional technical degrees, though to a lesser extent.
Gross minimum wage as a percentage of gross median wage of full-time workers, 2014 and 2024
Note: The Gross minimum wage as a percentage of gross median wage of full-time workers for the United States is an estimate based on a Laspeyres index of applicable minimum wages across US states. The minimum wage used for Canada is an average of the provinces’ minimum wages (not including territories) weighted by employment shares. OECD is the unweighted average of the 30 OECD countries shown.
Source: OECD Data Explorer, “Minimum relative to average wages of full-time workers”, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/2ay.
A further concern relates to the potential impact of a high minimum wage on labour market formalisation. A growing body of academic research for Colombia finds that relatively high minimum wages can have negative effects on employment prospects for workers whose productivity lies close to or below the wage floor (OECD, 2022[17]). In such cases, firms may be reluctant to hire these workers formally, which can push employment into informality. This aspect is particularly relevant in Colombia, where a significant share of the workforce earns less than the minimum wage and where informality remains widespread (see Chapter 2), especially among young workers, women, the low-skilled and workers in rural areas. In the past, strong increases in the minimum wage were combined with reductions in non-wage costs (like the reduction in payroll taxes in 2013 and the reduction of employers’ health contributions in 2014) or hiring subsidies introduced in 2021 to promote formal employment creation. During the last years, in contrast, non-wage labour costs have increased as a result of the labour reform and reductions in working hours.
Finally, recent minimum wage increases have had material macroeconomic consequences. Large and repeated adjustments well above productivity growth have fed into inflation persistence through indexation mechanisms, particularly in services and other non-tradable sectors (OECD, 2026[18]).
Further increases in the minimum wage should therefore be carefully assessed and their effects on employment and informality closely monitored, especially given the stabilisation in the informality rate over the past two years (see Chapter 2). Collective bargaining across the wage spectrum would allow for a repositioning of the minimum wage as wage floor instead of wage norm.
Comparing the minimum wage to the median wage is generally more informative than comparing it to the average (mean) wage because it better reflects the position of low-paid workers within the wage distribution.
The median wage represents the wage of the “typical” worker: half of workers earn less, and half earn more. This makes it a robust benchmark for assessing how binding or restrictive the minimum wage is. If the minimum wage is close to the median, it indicates that a large share of workers are directly or indirectly affected by it, which can signal wage compression at the lower end of the distribution.
By contrast, the average wage can be misleading because it is strongly influenced by very high earners. In countries with high income inequality, a small number of top earners can pull the average wage upward, making the minimum wage appear relatively low even when it is high for most workers. As a result, comparing the minimum wage to the average wage may underestimate how binding the wage floor is for the majority of the workforce.
Using the median wage is therefore particularly important in countries like Colombia, where wage inequality and informality are significant. A high ratio of the minimum wage to the median wage suggests that the wage floor is close to what a typical worker earns, which can have important implications for employment, informality, and wage‑setting mechanisms.
Colombia has made important advances towards a two‑tier system of sectoral and firm-level bargaining through the elaboration of regulations on sectoral bargaining for the public sector (in 2024) and the private sector (in 2026). Measures to address trade union fragmentation have also been introduced, by encouraging multiple trade unions in the same company/government branch to form a bargaining team and strive for a single collective agreement. The new labour law of 2025 also incorporates a few elements relevant to reduce anti‑union practices, even if only in an indirect and preventive manner.
Other challenges related to collective bargaining and social dialogue remain unaddressed. In line with the recommendations in ELSAC’s Formal Opinion on Colombia’s accession to the OECD (see Box 4.1), the OECD encourages the government to operationalise its electronic trade union registration system so that data on collective bargaining can be systematically collected to track its evolution and facilitate comparison with other OECD countries. The OECD also reiterates its recommendations to eliminate the option to negotiate collective pacts, give the right to strike to higher-level trade union organisations, and reflect on alternatives to the outright prohibition of strikes in public and essential services, such as introducing a requirement of minimum service. In addition, the OECD suggests to automatically extend the collective agreements to all employees of a company, including when trade unions represent less than one‑third of the company’s workforce, and expand the existing dispute resolution system with conciliation and mediation mechanisms, to promote constructive conflict management and reduce the focus on arbitration and labour courts.
Better social dialogue and collective bargaining across the wage spectrum would allow for a gradual adjustment of the very high minimum wage compared to the median level and bring it back to its original role of wage floor instead of wage norm.
References
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[5] Función pública (2024), Decree 243 of 2024, https://www.funcionpublica.gov.co/eva/gestornormativo/norma.php?i=234370.
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[16] OECD Development Centre (2026), Securing the livelihoods of informal workers in times of global changes, Forthcoming.