The modification of internal regulations and the creation of policies for prevention and action in the face of conduct regulated by this upcoming law will be key.
On January 5, the Executive enacted the law that strengthens the regulation on prevention, investigation and punishment of labor, sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.
This initiative, known as “Karin Law”, will enter into force six months after its publication in the Official Gazette and is framed within the commitments assumed by our country with the International Labor Organization (ILO) within the framework of Convention 190 on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment at Work.
This new regulation establishes amendments to the Labor Code, the Organic Constitutional Law of State Administration, the Administrative Statute and other regulations, strengthening – at least in relation to the Labor Code – the regulation on sexual harassment and establishing a new regulation on harassment and violence in the labor context, obliging employers to take specific measures to prevent and eradicate this type of conduct.
In this way, and in relation to the Labor Code, the main modifications introduced are as follows:
- It establishes that labor relations must no longer be based on a treatment compatible with human dignity, but rather on a treatment free of violence, compatible with the dignity of the person and with a gender perspective, establishing that the employer is obliged to promote and eradicate conduct contrary to them, having to implement measures to prevent, investigate and punish sexual and labor harassment and violence in the workplace.
- Defines harassment at work, sexual harassment and violence at work, regulating jointly their investigation and sanction.
- It expands the doctrinal understanding of harassment in the workplace, establishing that it is considered harassment even when the act of harassment occurs only once and not only repeatedly, as long as it harms the employment situation or the employment opportunities of the complainant.
- It establishes the obligation for employers to include in their internal regulations a protocol for the prevention of sexual harassment, labor harassment or violence in the workplace and the procedure to be followed by employees. Then, for those companies that are not obliged to have this regulation, it incorporates the obligation to make known, at the time of signing the employment contract, the prevention protocol and the investigation and sanction procedure to which such conducts will be submitted, establishing and delimiting this law the minimum content of such protocol.
- It expands the way in which a complaint of sexual harassment can be made, establishing that for both labor, sexual harassment and violence at work, the complaint can be made both verbally and in writing, unlike the previous regulation, which required that the complaint of sexual harassment be made known to the employer in writing.
- It incorporates the employer’s obligation to immediately adopt measures to protect those involved in acts related to harassment, sexual harassment or violence at work.
Finally, it incorporates substantive changes in the area of harassment and violence in the workplace that will oblige companies to evaluate their internal regulations and make the necessary adjustments to comply with these new regulations.
In many cases, the key will be the modification of internal regulations and the creation of prevention and action policies for behaviors that fall within those regulated by this upcoming law.
For more information on these topics, please contact our #azLabor group:
Jorge Arredondo | Partner | jarredondo@az.cl
Jocelyn Aros | Senior Associate | jaros@az.cl
Felipe Neira | Associate | fneira@az.cl
Palmira Valdivia | Associate | pvaldivia@az.cl
