Disputes in the labour regulatory space: Digitalisation and sociotechnical change in retail

This article examines regulatory disputes in Chile’s retail sector amid sociotechnical change, employing the Regulatory Spaces Approach (RSA) to analyse a functional flexibility plan in supermarkets. Implemented alongside new logistics and sales technologies, the plan redeployed specialised roles into the contentious ‘store operator’ position, leading to wage reductions and work intensification. Drawing on qualitative interviews and documentary evidence, the article makes two contributions to the literature on employment, regulation and digitalisation. First, it extends RSA to sociotechnical change in traditional work settings, showing how firms, trade unions and state actors contest and shape transformation processes even in weak and fragmented industrial relations contexts. Second, it highlights innovative employer strategies of ‘institutional toying’ through which firms restructure work, misclassify labour and leverage labour data to drive change.