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/ Publication of New Law on Workplace Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Violence at Work

January 18, 2024

Sebastian Garrido
Associate Attorney

On January 15, Law No. 2,643 was published, which amends the Labor Code and other legal bodies, in matters of prevention, investigation and sanction of workplace harassment, sexual harassment or violence at work. The amendments introduced by this law will become effective as from the sixth month of its publication (June 15, 2024). This will imply a review and update of internal regulations and of the processes used to deal with complaints and investigations of workplace harassment, sexual harassment or violence at work within the organizations.

This law, also called Karin Law, is named after the case of the late nursing technician Karin Salgado. Its purpose is to “introduce a series of amendmets to the Labor Code, in order to improve the mechanisms for the prevention and punishment of workplace harassment in companies and, by the way, to establish procedures for psychological assistance for victims of workplace harassment, tending to ensure a professional accompaniment at the time the complaint of workplace harassment is filed, all of which will be provided by the employer”, as indicated in the initial message of the bill.

The major amendments provided for by this new law are:

Article 2 of the Labor Code is amended. The most important of these amendments are the following:

• The definition of Workplace Harassment is modified. It states that it is “Any conduct that constitutes aggression or harassment exercised by the employer or by one or more workers, by any means, whether it happens once or repeatedly, and that results in the affected person or persons being undermined, mistreated or humiliated, or that threatens or harms their work situation or their employment opportunities”. With this, harassment in the workplace no longer requires repeated conduct as required by the current regulations.
• Violence in the workplace is created as a new legal concept, defined as “Violence in the workplace exercised by third parties outside the labor relationship, being understood as those behaviors that affect workers during the provision of services, by clients, suppliers or users, among others”. State the difference as in the previous point.

The provisions to be contained in the internal regulations are modified:

• The internal regulations must contain a protocol for the prevention of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence at work and the procedure for the investigation and sanction of such conducts.
• Any company that is not obliged to maintain internal regulations must inform the employees, at the time of signing the employment contracts, the protocol for the prevention of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence at work and the investigation and sanction procedure to which such conducts will be subject, within which the measures of protection to be adopted with respect to those involved and the sanctions to be applied must be considered.

Title IV of Book II is amended and renamed “Prevention, investigation and sanction of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence at work”:

• The form of filing complaints is modified, which may be in written or verbal form. In the latter case, whoever receives the complaint must draw up a report of the complaint, which must be signed by the complainant.
• Companies, in addition to adopting the necessary safeguards for those involved, must provide the complainant with early psychological care, through mutual insurance companies.
• In the event that the investigation is carried out by the Labor Inspectorate, the company must send the background information within 3 business days, instead of the 5 days that existed until now in the law.

In addition to the above amendments, the Superintendence of Social Security, by means of a general applicability rule, will provide guidelines to the entities that administer Law No. 16,744, so that in the exercise of technical assistance to employers, they prepare the protocol for the prevention of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence at work that must be given to workers.

Likewise, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare must issue a regulation establishing the guidelines to be followed in the investigation of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence at work.

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Sebastian Garrido Associate Attorney On January 15, Law No. 2,643 was published, which amends the Labor Code and other legal bodies, in matters of prevention, investigation and sanction of workplace […]

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