The health situation posed by COVID-19 led to a sequence of events that, in the workplace context, have allowed rules and conditions in Colombia to change or be rethought. There is no doubt that virtuality demonstrated its benefits during this juncture: hundreds of companies are still reluctant to return to in-person work. Remote work has allowed them to reduce costs and optimize processes; hence, in August of this year, Law 2121 was approved, establishing the norms to promote and regulate the exercise of virtual work.
This is a regulation that determines that remote work will be voluntarily agreed upon by the parties. Professional practice will be carried out through technologies that allow the fulfillment of the agreed-upon tasks between employer and employee. In this new type of labor relationship, even the termination of the contract can be done virtually, although there are some exceptions in which in-person attendance may be mandatory.
To further organize the virtuality situation, Law 2088 was also approved, which regulates work from home. With these new regulations, Colombia now has legal elements that allow for the organization of new work dynamics, which caused a lot of confusion in the early days of the pandemic.
Both the remote work law and the work-from-home law arrived in the country to establish rules that did not exist, and for which both employers and employees needed clarity. However, the same has not happened with other provisions currently under discussion in Colombia.
Today, the bill called the “Law of Disconnection from Work” was approved in its third debate. The bill aims to establish the conditions regarding the amount of time employees must work, defending the right to have the hours agreed upon in the initial contract respected. In this way, it seeks to provide guarantees for workers' rest, regardless of their work modality.
The regulation, the proponents assure, does not allow disconnections during working hours, but it does seek to prevent working hours from extending beyond what is necessary. In any case, the worker must continue to meet their goals, agreed-upon working hours, and activities related to their contract and professional activity.
It is a bill that must be thoroughly explained, without any loopholes or room for interpretation. While employees will benefit from it, the same cannot be said for employers, who see its approval as creating a situation where disconnection and reduced working hours corner and jeopardize productivity.
A blow to the dying business sector has been the reduction in working hours, another of the laws passed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to Law 2101, the workweek in Colombia went from 48 to 42 hours per week. A cut in hours that works against the recovery of the productive apparatus. This, along with shared paternity leave; which allows the new father more days off work, a possible "right to disconnect" law, and even a possible pet bereavement leave law, creates more instability within an economic sector that finds itself increasingly cornered and at the same time urgently needing to regain its stability.
In June of this year, business leaders who are part of ANDI, Fenalco, and Acopi insisted that the then-proposed reduction of the workweek would not help create jobs. Bruce Mac Master, the highest representative of ANDI, called it regrettable that the Congress of the Republic did not understand the current moment the country is in, where efforts should be focused on creating employment and reducing unemployment rates. “This should have been a law to create work and overcome informality,” he stated at the time.
While the Colombian working class deserves respect for their rights in both personal and labor contexts, so too do the country's employers, especially small and medium-sized ones with limited economic maneuverability, become minimized in a system where companies' spaces and guarantees succumb to personal needs. The world evolves, priorities change, and societies are increasingly heard. However, in an emerging country like Colombia, which is still finding its economic strategies for lasting stability, the business sector—from the most robust to the smallest—remains the foundation and pillar for the country's progress. Therefore, their needs are also important and must be heard.