The Workday’s Law has been modified

Since 1929 the Workday Regime is mainly regulated in our country by Law No. 11,544.

The first paragraph of Section 1 of Law No. 11,544 states as a general rule that the extension of the workday shall not exceed eight hours per day or forty-eight hours per week for all those people employed at private and public institutions even if it is a non-profit organization.

This general statement allows those exceptions expressly mentioned in the statutory text given as a reference, such as Point a) of Section 3 – to which the amendment refers– stating that, before such modification, regarding the organizations included at Section 1 some exceptions were allowed, such as “a) those jobs related to security and surveillance”.

The amendment changes the exception substantially, clearly stating that the only ones excluded from the application of a limit to the workday are directors and managers, that is, those who do not merit overtime payment.

Nowadays, supervisors, deputy-managers and CEOs, among others, are collecting their salaries within different economic conditions than those employees, to whom the collective bargaining agreement is applied, namely: collecting awards, gratifications, bonus for achievement of targets, despite  being paid overtime when they work extra time.

The criteria that change since the amendment, and those employees entitled to collect it are the following:

(i) employees who render hierarchical services, but directors and manager;

(ii) those employees that perform surveillance services.

Deputy Recalde – who instigated this amendment –based his arguments on the extension of the workday. He insists that limiting the workday’s extension is caring for the employee’s mental and physical health, such as letting him/her enjoy his/her personal life,  that constitute the axis of the whole legal system and that other priorities have an instrumental value.

Bearing in mind the above, he understands that there is no reason to exclude those employees who perform surveillance jobs or have people in charge from the maximum limit of extension of the workday, provided that their performances at the Company do not allow them to be put on a level with the owner of the Company. 

Lastly, since the amendment, point a) of Section 3 of Law No 11,544 will be written in this way:

We must highlight the fact that through this new amendment inflexibility is being introduced to the workday regime that, undoubtedly, will generate as a result of the above, more labor costs taking into consideration that the only ones excluded from the overtime regime are directors and managers.