In a press release from Chile Fruits, the president of the business organization that brings together Chilean fruit producers and exporters, Ivan Marambio, refers to the opinion of the Labor Directorate that rejects the idea of ​​lengthening the snack hours or subdividing the reduction into daily minutes to comply with the regulations for reducing the working day, within the framework of the well-known “40 Hours Law.” .

The leader of the fruit growers pointed out that as a sector they support the reduction of the working day and that they hope that the full hour is applied where possible.

Support for the Law

Ivan Marambio assured that the recent opinion of the Labor Directorate causes important uncertainties, because it may not be applicable in certain cases and that, as Chile Fruits, have several apprehensions regarding the rulings, "not so with the Law, which we promoted and supported, since it seems to us that it is a norm that can be carried out for the benefit of the workers," he pointed out.

“More than 600 people work directly in fruit growing, therefore, for our sector these matters are very important,” he remarked.

The claim is against the rulings, which according to the leader “have come to entangle what had been done so well,” because he remembers that the rule was made with the agreement of the business world, workers and social organizations.

Opinion and applicability

The specific observations made by the president of Chile Fruits There are mainly three:

The first thing is that it seems negative to them that at the last minute ways of acting are established that do not provide certainty, when the responsibility of the authority is to provide certainty.

Second, they feel displaced. “Our sector, in which so many people work, does not have a special consideration, but we are considered as a sector that works permanently and in the same way as other industries in the country, when we have seasons and “peaks”.

A third point refers to the problems of applicability according to the opinion. “We are favoring and supporting the fact that both workers and employers reach agreements and we hope that these agreements go in the direction of reducing working hours and that this happens in a single day so that the worker can take full advantage of it.

However, there are problems in its applicability, as established in the opinion. In this sense, it is enough to point out shift work as an example. Its applicability is very difficult, since gaps would be generated between the shift that leaves and the shift that begins, therefore, there is a problem and proportionality seems to be the logical formula. Another aspect is that there were already agreements signed between companies and unions, so the question arises what is going to happen with it, since today all that seems to be in doubt.

Special actors

Finally, Ivan Marambio observed that as a sector there is another matter that also concerns them significantly and that is related to article 22, where the “immediate higher supervision is understood to be done via cell phone, and that seems negative to us, because as an industry we have people who are, obviously, without immediate superior supervision, such as, for example, field leaders, field managers, agronomists, among others. These are people who cannot remain under strict, rigorous work schedules, because they are in places where the work is simply not compatible with that limitation.”