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The Chilean Congress approved the reduction of the working week from 45 to 40 hours in the next five years. Together with Ecuador and Venezuela, Chile will become the third country in Latin America with a workload of 40 hours per week, compared to the 48 that, for example, prevail in Argentina, Colombia or Mexico.
With Yasna Mussa and Naila Deroisné, from Santiago de Chile.
The 40 working hours will be a reality in Chile, after, by a large majority and transversal support, the project finally passed its last stage in the Chamber of Deputies. With this, the government of Gabriel Boric will achieve its objective of promulgating this law before International Workers’ Day, next May 1.
The Communist Party deputy, Karol Cariola, was one of the authors of this parliamentary motion presented in 2018. “It has been six years, one month and three days since we introduced this bill to this National Congress. And today it becomes the law of the Republic. And that fills us with emotion”, reacted the deputy.
Cariola thanked his parliamentary colleagues and especially the current government spokesperson, Camila Vallejo, co-author of the project. “Little by little we were doing collective work to be able to carry out a law that represents us transversally and that otherwise makes today a historic day. Today the working day is reduced to 40 hours and the entire country will remember this forever “declared Camila Vallejo.
This project will be implemented gradually, reaching 44 hours in May of next year, in 2026 it would drop to 42 and in May 2028 it would finally reach the 40-hour day.
The case of domestic workers
For some professions, such as domestic workers, this labor reform means a great change. For these women, the week will not be reduced to 40 hours, but the new law has provided that they have 2 more days off per month.
“It is a big step forward and we are very happy. But the Chilean boss continues to think that we are his slaves, in a good way, because he would never assume the substance of his thinking,” Maria Cotal Neíra, president of the Chilean domestic workers union, told RFI, interviewed by Naila Deroisné in Santiago. From Chile.
According to official figures, in Chile there are 400,000 domestic workers. But it is estimated that two thirds of them do not have an employment contract.
