After winning the midterm elections, the government announced that it would send to Congress a draft law to reform labor legislation, the main standard of which, the Labor Contract Law (LCT, No. 20744), dates back to 1974, although it has been amended over time. Does anyone remember the labor law?
In the 1940s, when the debate on social rights reached its peak in our country, the Constitutional Reform of 1949 included in the upper text the so-called “second generation rights”, related to labor protections – such as decent conditions and fair wages – union participation and social security.
Thus, soon after – and with a coup – in 1957, a new constitutional reform abolished the provisions of 1949, mainly because of the dubious supremacy it gave to the executive. Despite this, the voters left social rights safe, enshrining them in recognized art. 14 bis, which survives to this day.
This amendment to our Constitution affirmed not only the full validity of these rights, but also affirmed the obligation of Congress to dictate the laws of “labor and social security,” “in consolidated or separate bodies,” according to the present article. 75, Inc. 12.
It must be emphasized that the essence of legal codification is the compilation of the subject legislation into a systematic, single and organized text, with the ability to unify positions and facilitate the application of the law. But codification means, above all, giving the law stability and continuity over time. Unfortunately, in business matters, This constitutional debt is now 68 years overdue.
Currently, the rules regulating employment are spread throughout the legal system. For example, we have not only the Telework Law, but also the Work Hygiene and Safety Law (No. 19587), the Occupational Hazards Law (No. 24557), and, more recently, the Telework Law (No. 27555), among others. Each also has its own regulations – among decrees and decisions – amending and repealing them.
Regulatory fragmentation in general, but mainly in the case we are dealing with today, entails problems of legal security in the judicial and legal spheres as well as in the economic and commercial spheres, since the uncertainty of knowing that every new government will come to change the rules of the game scares investments and puts our republic in its place. As an area it is difficult to predict.
At this time when we are discussing the modernization and reform of the labor system in Argentina, it would be very beneficial for our country to move forward with the creation of the labor law imposed on us by our Constitution, establishing general principles applicable transversely, adopting jurisprudential standards and betting on labor modernization that is consistent with our constitutional provisions and the international treaties to which we have signed.
The institutional maturity that the imposition of the Labor Code would demonstrate to society and the world would open the door not only to the continuation of other laws – such as social security and tax matters – but also to the arrival of foreign and domestic capital that would bring the long-awaited economic growth that our population needs, because they will see that the Argentine nation He will never return to improvisation and backwardness of laws.
Associate editor of the Journal of Legal Sciences of the University of El Salvador
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