Protocol of Action in Situations of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Violence

This objective proposes the consideration of a protocol that establishes procedural guidelines. For practical reasons, we have divided this protocol into two areas of action: preventive and punitive.

Preventive Scope

It is recommended that employers plan and implement training and communication / notification actions, as detailed:

1. Training, aimed at ensuring that employees know the basic foundations of the legal norms that punish, limit, condition or neutralize sexual harassment and violence in the workplace (the “SASVT” after its acronym in Spanish).

Despite the general principle that the law is deemed known by all, it is always advisable to train employees and other staff members in a practical manner on important topics that affect staff and employers.

Argentine labor legislation, in different ranks and hierarchy, protects the right of people to work in an employment relationship in a healthy environment, in which employers and their representatives guarantee full respect for the employees’ psychophysical integrity. The set of applicable rules and principles oblige those who exercise the power of management and administration of a company to refrain from committing certain behaviors that involve a wide range that include from those most presumably reprehensible, up to others that in appearance could be considered in principle “milder” or hypothetically tolerable according to certain sociocultural patterns, are usually suitable conductors to lead to situations or later behaviors, clearly framed in prohibited situations.

In this regard it is recommended to train staff on the fundamental aspects of the applicable regulations and the most frequent examples of situations considered prohibited, inappropriate or notoriously discouraged in the workplace, and the human and legal consequences that any incursion in such acts could have.

2. Communication / notification of the company’s internal regulations or provisions that, placing themselves within the context of the aforementioned legal provisions, channel their effective application to a particular company, either through the imposition of specific procedures, suggestions or mere notices about what are the standards of conduct that the company, as employer, considers enforceable in the workplace.

In this area, each employee will be informed of the internal conduct regulation (or instrument of similar characteristics, regardless of its formal name), in writing, providing him/her with a copy that contains the applicable legal and contractual rules, keeping a record of this notification, with the employee’s signature on each document.

Punitive Scope

The employer should have previously implemented a research system, related or within the area of human resources management, that is able to react quickly to an apparent situation of SASVT.

For this purpose, it is necessary to specifically train leaders, supervisors, managers and directors, with similar characteristics to the ones referred to in the preventive scope, but in greater depth, since these employees are the employer’s representatives in relation to the labor sphere.

This protocol must guarantee the following:

• Existence of a channel through which a complaint can be made, with reasonable guarantees of confidentiality, reservation and defense against reprisals.

• The activation of a preliminary investigative procedure or “quick scan” that allows concluding the existence of plausibility of the alleged facts.

• The implementation of interviews with the victim of the prohibited actions, and also with the accused as its author.

• When its justification from the legal point of view is outlined, conducting a formal internal investigation, adjusted to the current legal requirements and limitations, allowing the collection of evidentiary elements capable of clarifying the facts, which can be presented to judicial authorities where necessary.

• The adoption of measures aimed at the immediate cessation of the harmful situation and/or inappropriate behavior.

• The adoption of reasonable measures that, within the context of what is authorized by the current labor legislation, the employer deems appropriate to justify the fulfillment of the obligations inherent to its condition. Within this broad spectrum we include the (consensual) modification of the job position or place of work of the affected persons, the applicability of a warning, suspension or possibly dismissal, with or without invocation of cause, as the circumstances of the case merit. In extreme cases, the employer may evaluate the need or convenience of making a criminal complaint, after analyzing the foreseeable consequences of a measure of these characteristics.

It is important to remember that employees’ acts can create liability for the employer. We recommend acting diligently to prevent situations that negatively impact the work environment and especially the employees, and in the event of detecting possible questionable behaviors, taking the appropriate measures in a timely manner.