This article analyzes the changes in the labor relations systems in Colombia and Brazil, which, due to their labor structures, inheritance of slave systems and deep regional differences, allow us to analyze the capital-labor contradictions in the context of center and center-left governments in The 21st century. In the case of Brazil, after more than a decade of improvements, the turn to the right has generated serious setbacks in individual and collective labor rights. In the case of Colombia, although with greater continuity in neoliberal policies, the shift to the center gave a democratic space for conflict resolution, which closed with the election of a government of the extreme right. In a context of worsening labor conflicts, the reinvention of unions is key to ensure that there are no more losses in terms of labor rights and to press for a new cycle of changes in the face of the possibility of a new political turn to the left in The horizon.