"Unstable and insecure" business ties and a "prevalence of short-term contracts," these were the observations made by the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) on the situation of the employees of the Secretariat of Labor of the City of Buenos Aires, the area that is responsible for controlling precisely the relations between employees and employers in the City.

The report of the watchdog approved this year on 2007 data, indicates that these situations "could be (one) of the causes for failures in executing tasks" of the Secretariat, adding that "because of the amount of resignations, retirement, and subsequent changes in the structure, human resources are lacking within the agency.” 

But the work of the audited body is not "inefficient and ineffective" solely by its management in human resources. The AGCBA also highlighted other shortcomings.

"Most of the inspections stem from a complaint, without officially established performances," says the report, adding that: "To this date there isn’t an Annual Audit Inspection Plan, nor was there one in the past, making it impossible to control the activity and proper use of resources.”

The watchdog says that the system of registration and documentation file dependency is "limited", considering the wealth of information handled by the Secretariat, and points out that "if an officer takes a phone complaint and does fill a form manually at that moment, no record remains of that act.”

To register complaints, the work area uses a "book that does not comply with any formality or rules of procedure," explains the AGCBA. There are two ways to make a complaint. In the case of the telephone mode, the Secretariat has a "single workstation (desk and chair) with one phone." There, the person responsible for taking action sets the data by hand in a form that according to the audit "is actually a photocopied paper without any numbering." On the face to face modality, beyond the fact that they used the same form, which "drew the attention of the audit team" was that neither the telephone number box or the signature line were filled out, on the contrary it was the undersecretary employee who makes an "informal rubric, unsealed and without any clarification."

However, on that "book that does not comply with any formality", employees who were responsible for completing it said "they didn’t know if there was any regulation that imposed its use", adding that there are several blank lines, according to those responsible there some lines "reserved to be filled with backlogs from the previous administration." The audit found that "there are still lots of actions without identification for the years 2005, 2006, and 2007; the sub-area does not generate its own statistics and have very few staff." To top it all off, the watchdog explained that 20,395 employee complaints were recorded in 2007.

What happens after complaints are files? The AGCBA stressed the "inactivity" of the Secretariat in several respects.

First, an 'inability to locate and identify numerous causes" is recorded. In fact, of the 95 complaints taken as shown by the AGCBA 35 could not be found (36.84%). Secondly, 13 cases had no administrative act or "movement" after passing through table entries.

Moreover, the "periods of adjustment" imposed by inspectors are not controlled, i.e., the time that an employer that is in violation has to regularize his situation. In addition, all the sample files were verifies, and "only one was raised as a summary, and others have been left without further processing," says the report, and lists that "67.7% of the performances recorded inactivity in the administration, 28% are 'deficient performance', and only 4% are 'pending proceedings.' 

The City Audit concluded that "the irregularity in the time that the proceedings are handled lead to a number of annulments and / or forfeitures that produce a constant tax prejudice" against the Federal Government because the "hours worked become unproductive".