Different studies and scholarspoint out that capitalist development requires the existence of an"informal working class", but that class is not presented as a sectoror segment isolated from its structure but rather as a continuum of economicrelations of production and commercialization (Bernstein, 2007; Hussmans,2005). This is particularly evident in developing countries in which a largepart of economic activities are developed by small production units and"self employed" generating sophisticated networks of exploitation andself-exploitation relationships (Davis, 2006).One of the industries where thiscan be proven is the garment manufacturing industry. In Argentina this is oneof the manufacturing activities that contributes most to the generation oftotal employment, although their working conditions are far from ideal(Lieutier, 2010, Ferrerira and Schorr, 2013). The sector includes a significantshare of non-salaried workers (32%) and unregistered employees (45.5%)(Bertranou et al, 2013) with a low percentage of unionization of workers(around 17%) (Matta and Magnano , 2011).The fragmentation, relocation andoutsourcing of the different links of the production chain, which haveparticularly deteriorated the working conditions of garment workers, is not anexclusive problem for the country but a global phenomenon that is widelyverified (Anner et al, 2012; Piore and Schrank , 2006; O´Rourke, 2011).Theseemingly paradoxical situation in Argentina is that the country was for a longtime outside the global clothing value chains, not participating as an exporterof labor for large international commercial firms or as a big importer in partthanks to the macroeconomic policies carried out between 2003 and 2015 (Mattaet al, 2015),This paper presents the preliminary results of an empiricalinvestigation carried out in the region of Córdoba (Argentina), one of thethree large conglomerates of the country where the industry is concentrated inwhich the objective will be:- Empirically demonstrate the grid structureassumed by the value chains at the local level and the way in which therelations between the formal and informal economies assume inter-firm relationsof contracting and subcontracting- Identify the heterogeneous forms in whichthe "informal working class" is presented, from different forms ofproduction and commercialization, as well as the connection and coexistencebetween different sociotechnical regimes (Geels and Schot, 2010).- Analyze themain limitations of recent industrial development policies to modify thisstructure of relationships. Although this is an investigation that appeals tomethodological triangulation (Fielding and Schreler, 2001; Moran-Ellis et al,2006) using mixed methods, a distinctive aspect of the study is that it has theresults of in-depth interviews and a semi-structured survey of a representativesample of 257 formal and informal productive units that make up the sector inthe region, from the largest companies to family and one-person enterprises orworkers´ cooperatives. The analysis of the data will include, among othertechniques, the use of "social network analysis", cluster analysisand content analysis to achieve these objectives.