The teleworking law does not apply to the home office in the event of a pandemic

The key to this last classification is that it does not respect the postulate of “volunteering” enshrined in the text of the new legislation to regulate the conditions of remote work. For them, the Ministry of Labor is preparing a complementary standard to give the chance that it is only once the restrictions derived from the pandemic have been finalized that the body will be opened to decide for or against the maintenance of the telework modality. Meanwhile, they clarified in the portfolio in charge of Claudio Moroni, the law will fully govern for all other employees.

The sanctioned law established that its validity would not be complete until 90 days after the end of the period of preventive, social and compulsory isolation (ASPO), which was extended during the pandemic on numerous occasions by Alberto Fernández and in a disparate manner. according to each province and locality of Argentina. Last January, the executive ordered by decree that it would be the Ministry of Labor that would set the date of entry into force of the standard. And through Resolution 54/2021, the Labor Portfolio finally kicked off that official debut on April 1.

The scheme will be applicable to workers who provide services outside the establishment of the employer on a regular and permanent basis by means of information and communication technologies. It will not be for those who perform these tasks under this modality sporadically or occasionally. The standard makes it possible to agree on a working day and guarantees the right to digital disconnection for teleworkers. In these cases, the employer may not send you communications or require tasks unless there is a different time zone between the two.

The legal text also establishes the power of the remote worker to perform at home tasks of taking charge of the persons for whom he is responsible, whom he cannot resign due to an economic incentive from the employer. The change of status from face-to-face to teleworking must always be voluntary and reversible, with the only limitation that in order to exercise this last right, the employee must present a “reasonable and supervisory” motivation to back down and not a simple change of opinion.

The employer who assigns remote tasks will be obliged to provide work elements typical of this modality (computer and adequate software) as well as tools for the best performance and the installation and support of a workspace. These elements will not form part of the basis for calculating any compensation. Teleworkers will benefit from the same guarantees and union protections as their face-to-face peers, according to the standard.