Government Pushes for 40-Hour Workweek Changes Amid Warnings of Labor Precarization in Tourism and Other Sectors

Original article: Gobierno impulsa cambios a las 40 horas y surgen alertas por precarización laboral en turismo y otros sectores

The urgent proposal presented by the Executive aims to extend the period for calculating work hours and create a special regime for the tourism industry. While the Government claims this initiative will provide greater flexibility, experts warn that it could weaken worker protections, delay the payment of overtime, and open opportunities for abuse without effective oversight.

The gradual reduction of the workweek to 40 hours was hailed by the previous Government as a major advancement in labor rights in recent years. However, a new urgent initiative submitted to the Chamber of Deputies has raised alarms among specialists and labor organizations, who argue that the proposed changes could ultimately relax the rules in favor of companies while undermining worker guarantees.

The project proposes modifications to Articles 22, 22 bis, and 32 of the Labor Code to extend the reference period used for calculating working hours.

Currently, the average number of hours worked is calculated over a four-week cycle, but the Executive’s initiative suggests extending this period to 16 weeks across all productive sectors.

Additionally, it establishes a special regime for tourism, encompassing hotels, restaurants, bars, pubs, casinos, nightclubs, and tour operators, allowing work hours to be distributed over cycles of up to 52 weeks through collective agreements or labor pacts.

More Flexibility for Companies

According to economist and professor at the Faculty of Administration and Economics at the University of Santiago (Usach), Víctor Silva, the proposal includes two fundamental changes.

On one hand, it extends the calculation cycle for working hours from four to 16 weeks and modifies the compensation system for overtime across all sectors. On the other hand, it creates a special regime for tourism that will allow organizing work hours over an entire year and increase the number of consecutive Sundays that can be worked from eight to twelve.

While the legal cap of 45 regular hours per week remains, Silva explained that the project alters how work and rest periods are managed, shifting much of that flexibility towards employers.

Overtime That Could Be Paid Much Later

One of the most concerning aspects is the new system for compensating overtime hours.

Currently, workers can accumulate up to five business days off as compensation for extra hours. The proposal raises this maximum to ten days and extends the period for using them to twelve months.

According to Silva, the initiative maintains the legal surcharge for overtime, but allows compensation to be postponed for a much longer period.

In practice, this means companies will be able to handle peak demand periods without immediately paying for overtime, deferring compensation to later months.

The academic cautioned that this mechanism requires much more rigorous oversight to prevent pending hours from turning into labor debts that are difficult to track or even collect.

Tourism: An Industry with Specific Risks

The Executive justifies the special regime for tourism by arguing that it is a highly seasonal activity, where hotels and restaurants focus much of their operations during specific times of the year.

From an economic perspective, Silva acknowledges that there is logic in allowing more flexibility to tackle high and low demand periods.

However, he warns that the main issue is not the design of the mechanism itself, but the State’s actual capacity to enforce compliance.

«The law requires written agreements and advance schedules, but the Labor Directorate faces significant limitations in overseeing thousands of businesses, especially SMEs with high staff turnover,» he explained.

The specialist stated that to prevent abuses, at least three conditions are essential:

• Effective and ongoing oversight by the Labor Directorate.
• Mandatory digital record of scheduled and actually worked hours.
• Labor organizations with real negotiation capabilities, not just formal signatories of agreements.

Risk of Increasing Precarization

One of the most sensitive issues, according to the academic, is that the project does not address the situation of those working on a freelance basis.

Being excluded from the Labor Code, these workers will continue without limits on work hours, without rights to overtime, and without access to the compensation mechanisms envisioned by the initiative.

Silva warns that this could create an incentive contrary to the goal declared by the Government.

If companies find it too complex to implement the new pacts or to face potential oversight, they may choose to maintain or even increase hiring on a freelance basis, avoiding labor obligations associated with a contract.

Instead of advancing towards greater formalization of employment, the outcome could be precisely the opposite: an expansion of more precarious forms of hiring.

The Concerns of Unions

Another shared concern among labor law specialists and union organizations relates to temporary workers.

In seasonal activities like tourism, a worker might endure intense hours during peak season with the promise of later receiving compensatory days off.

However, if the contract ends before the annual calculation cycle is completed, there are doubts about how that compensation will be effectively guaranteed.

Silva believes this gap represents one of the main risks of the project, particularly in sectors where short-duration contracts and high staff turnover predominate.

A Reform That Raises More Questions than Certainties

While the Government presents the initiative as a tool to adapt work hours to the economic reality of certain sectors, specialists caution that flexibility can only translate into progress when accompanied by robust oversight mechanisms and effective protections for workers.

Otherwise, they warn, a reform designed to modernize work organization could end up undermining one of the key labor advances of recent years: reducing the workweek as a means to improve the quality of life for those employed.

El Ciudadano