The Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), Luisa María Alcalde Luján, presented the draft of the NOM037 before the National Consultative Committee for Standardization of Safety and Health at Work, with this proposal, it is intended to determine the safety and health conditions in the home office.
In that sense, the head of the job said that said rule will protect more than 13 million workers from physical, ergonomic and psychosocial risks, “with a comprehensive vision of gender and that in the same way, they will provide certainty to employers about what conditions they can establish in such a way job”.
A year ago, the reform to the Federal Labor Law came into force to regulate labor relations by telecommuting; where, the employers in the country had to consider aspects such as: establishing written contracts, granting the same salary and benefits, respecting the right to disconnection at the end of the working day and assuming the costs derived from the work – the payment of services of telecommunications and part of the electricity – although NOM037 was pending, since 18 months were granted for the STPS to issue a project.
It should be noted that Inegi data revealed that at least 30% of companies in the country had the possibility of implementing the teleworking modality last year.
At the time, Mayor Luján commented that this law represented a challenge for the world of work, “Teleworking grew significantly in the face of the pandemica fact that was resolved by the legislature and where a law was approved that implies a greater discussion, even with work tables in which the sectors participate in order to land the concepts already defined by the legislature.
In accordance with the Federal Labor Law and the Regulations on the matter, the employer is responsible for protecting the health and safety at work of workers, which also applies to telecommuting. Employers have the same health and safety responsibilities for telecommuters as they do for any other worker in their workplace.
It is expected that, according to the regulations agenda published in August 2021, the new NOM will be approved for the month of April.
In this regard, Alfonso Bouzas, coordinator of the Labor Observatory, the STPS proposal “will be aimed at addressing the changes imposed on us by this new reality and the way in which it will be regulated, having to observe the interests, needs and conditions of both parties – employers and workers.
“There must be clarity, even, that “it is not the same Outsourcing that telecommuting is not the same as a call center, nor is it the same as another series of other innovative forms of contracting; the big problem with telecommuting is detecting who the boss is,” he said.
Likewise, he said that the discussion on working hours, privacy, disconnection times, new programs is reopened, “there are certain workers who will not necessarily operate with a rigid working day; This leads us to rethink that there are 4 basic variables in the classic employment relationship: working hours, salary, employment stability and working conditions”.