The unions pointed out that the implementation of the latest ruling, which will come into force next Friday, is "inappropriate and inadmissible" and "contravenes the regulations themselves."
Yesterday, Thursday, the Government of Chile, through the Ministry of Labor and the Directorate of Labor (DT), communicated an opinion in which the proportionality in the reduction of the working day, contemplated in the 40 Hour Law, was specified.
The implementation of the regulations will come into effect next Friday, April 26: the weekly working day will officially go from 45 to 44 hours per week, at most, since companies have the “freedom” to apply a working day of less than 44 hours from now on. .
Among several aspects, the opinion clarified that, immediately, the working hours must be reduced by one hour and that this must fall on one day (employers, for example, cannot reduce that weekly hour by reducing minutes per day).
Criticisms of private unions
The Santiago Chamber of Commerce (CCS) expressed its “concern and surprise” at the aspects indicated in the opinion.
He alluded to an “imposition of a specific formula” that the employer must use to adjust the daily work day, in order to implement the weekly reduction.
The president of the CCS, María Teresa Vial, stated that “the DT interprets the reduction of the maximum weekly working day in a restrictive manner, limiting it to a total reduction of one hour, whose main objective is the adaptation of the business structure to this legal modification. , on one day a week, considering that the Law itself does not establish that distinction.”
In his opinion, it is “worrying” that the opinion was issued one week after the entry into force of the Law, since many businesses, organizations and companies had implemented – or had already planned – the changes required by the statute and that should be a reality next Friday.
In general terms, the trade union affirmed the resolution “does not respect” the sense of gradualness of the 40-hour Law.
Along the same lines, from the gastronomic sector they believed that the Government put on the table an “imposition outside the norm.”
Máximo Picallo, president of the Chilean Gastronomy Association (Achiga), expressed that companies have already made their internal decisions to make this adjustment “by virtue of the internal needs and regimes of each organization,” adapting to their own realities and what requires the Law.
“(…) Pulling this rabbit out of the hat at the last minute seems completely inappropriate and inadmissible to us, since it contravenes the regulations themselves,” he added.
The union representative, finally, asked for “sensibility” and “common sense” from the authorities to “make possible compliance with the 40-hour Law in the terms established by the legislation, facilitating the process instead of hindering it.”
