10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777
Due to the global pandemic, Colombia has established a preventive social isolation with some exceptions. In order to protect workers' sources of income, it has adopted various measures to guarantee job stability, employees' labour income and informal workers’ rights, while considering the opinion of the Social Partners. Therefore, and despite that the Colombian government’s reaction has not completely covered the relevant ILO’s International Labour Standards yet, there is clear and daily action to adapt the norms and institutions in the country in order to thrive after the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Juliana Morad
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COVID-19 and Labour Law: Colombia
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Juliana Morad
2020/04/15
10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777
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COVID-19 and Labour Law: Colombia
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COVID-19 and Labour Law: Colombia                                                 Italian Labour Law e-Journal
Juan Pablo López Moreno, Luz Angela Duarte González, Juliana                     Special Issue 1, Vol. 13 (2020)
Morad                                                              Covid-19 and Labour Law. A Global Review
jmorad@javeriana.edu.co                                                                        ISSN 1561-8048
                                                                https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777




                 COVID-19 and Labour Law: Colombia
      Juan Pablo López Moreno, Luz Angela Duarte González,
                        Juliana Morad*

                                                    Abstract
     Due to the global pandemic, Colombia has established a preventive social isolation with some
     exceptions. In order to protect workers' sources of income, it has adopted various measures to
     guarantee job stability, employees' labour income and informal workers’ rights, while
     considering the opinion of the Social Partners. Therefore, and despite that the Colombian
     government’s reaction has not completely covered the relevant ILO’s International Labour
     Standards yet, there is clear and daily action to adapt the norms and institutions in the country
     in order to thrive after the COVID-19 outbreak.



     Keywords: Covid-19; Labour Law; Employment retention schemes; Unemployment benefits;
     Health and safety.




     The Colombian government’s reaction to the outbreak of COVID-19 and to the World
 Health Organization (WHO) pandemic declaration of the 11th of March started on the 17th
 of March when the Colombian’s President, Ivan Duque, declared the state of economic,
 social and ecological emergency through the Decree 457 of 2020. The mentioned Decree
 allows the government to issue the necessary decisions to correct the situation and avoid its
 expansion until the 17th of April; a term that could be extended up to 60 days during 2020.
     A sequel of decisions has been adopted in the country from different approaches, as the
 existing norms and mechanisms in the country did not anticipate the ripple effect of those
 measures:

 1. Regarding the limitations to freedom of movement.

       a) From the 17th of March until the 30th of May, Colombia closed its land, sea and
          river borders (Venezuelan border closure began on the 13th of March) (Decrees 402
          and 412).


 *
   Juan Pablo López Moreno, Lawyer and specialist in labour law. Director of the Labour Law Department of
 the Universidad Javeriana; Luz Angela Duarte González, Professor at Universidad Javeriana. Lawyer,
 specialist in Labour Law and specialist in Tax Law. Master in Economic Law and MSc in Law and
 Accounting; Juliana Morad, Professor at Universidad Javeriana. Lawyer and Philosopher. Specialist in Labour
 Law and Specialist in Social Security Law.
 Juan Pablo López Moreno                                               Italian Labour Law e-Journal
 Luz Angela Duarte González                                           Special Issue 1, Vol. 13 (2020)
 Juliana Morad                                           Covid-19 and Labour Law. A Global Review
                                                                           Section: National Reports




    b) From the 18th of March until the 30th of May, over-50 people meetings and
       gatherings are prohibited (Decree 420).
    c) Adults over the age of 70 must keep a under isolation from the 20th of March until
       the 30th of May (Resolution 464).
    d) The arriving of international travellers (foreigners and nationals) is prohibited for
       30 days from the 23rd of March, while the national flights have been suspended
       from the 13th of March until the 27th of April (Decree 531). The international flight
       restriction is expected to be extended.
    e) As of the 25th of March (00:00) until the 27th of April (00:00) 2020 there is a
       mandatory preventive isolation for everyone in the country (Decrees 457 and 531).
       In order to guarantee the life, health and survival rights to all the inhabitants, 35
       activities were exempted for the isolation measure, under certain conditions.


2. Regarding the measures to cope with the employment effects of the mobility
restrictions.

   The isolation measures affected most industries in the country and provoked either the
use of existing rules or the issue of new and transitory regulation:

- First of all, the Ministry of Labour called the employees to analyse and take all the
available measures to avoid the termination of contracts due to the COVID-19 outbreak,
which includes some tools established in the Colombian Labour Code and other labour
related laws.
    The suggested measures depend on whether the employer can keep providing the
service, which includes alternatives such as home office, teleworking and the agreement on
flexible working conditions; or not, in which case employers could allow the employees to
enjoy vacations (even if those have not been accrued yet) and study other employment
retention schemes, as the agreement of paid and non-paid leaves or the suspension of the
contracts, based on the proof of a force majeure situation.
    Either way, the Ministry warned about a special severity on its investigations and
procedures (Rigorous Labour Audits) to guarantee the employees’ rights.

- Second of all, the government provided some direct measures over the unemployed
community, simplifying the access to the Layoff Protection Mechanism (up to USD $430 -
two monthly minimum wages) and to the severance aid payment (one month of salary
payed yearly by the employer to a Fund).

  With respect to the exempted activities, the government implemented new and special
measures to protect the employees that could be exposed to the virus:
   - Companies need to acquire special protection elements for their employees, as well
       to carry out special and frequent check-ups, taking all the preventive measures to
       contain and control COVID-19.

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777                                                        2
 Juan Pablo López Moreno                                               Italian Labour Law e-Journal
 Luz Angela Duarte González                                           Special Issue 1, Vol. 13 (2020)
 Juliana Morad                                           Covid-19 and Labour Law. A Global Review
                                                                           Section: National Reports




    -    In addition, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health and Social
         Protection ordered the promotion of control measures, such as social distancing,
         washing hands and proper use of working tools.

   As the national measures generated school and childcare closures, some of them have
implemented home school schemes. However, their efficiency depends on finding an equal
balance of home duties and home-office schemes between the parents, which could include
an extended family when they live in the same house. In that sense, the government has
implemented no measure to help the parents to cope with this situation.

   The Colombian government has not generated a special treatment in favour of informal
and daily wage workers yet. However, it has amplified existing programs for the elderly,
people with disabilities and families living in extreme poverty, including the provision of
basic goods for them.

   Considering the difficulty of the state and the employers and companies to carry out the
administrative procedures and to guarantee the health and safety of those who would
provide the service, the administrative procedures followed by the Ministry and other
entities have been suspended during the state of emergency declared by the President
(Resolutions 876, 784 and 385).

   In addition, it is important to notice the participation of some Social Partners in
Colombia regarding this matter. On one hand, it has been known that the Association of
representing health employees have addressed a letter to the President asking for the
improvement of their working conditions (Semana, 2020), and some unions have
announced the creation of funds to help their affiliates or special workers in need, such as
FECODE (Colombian Federation of Education Workers)(Education International, 2020)
and the USO (Colombian Oil workers Union) (Escuela Nacional Sindical, 2020). On the
other hand, the Association of Chamber of Commerce of Colombia (Confecamaras) has
helped the companies through levelling the market field to provide the scarce supplies in
some industries, and providing them in others (Confecamaras, 2020). In addition, the
National Business Association of Colombia (ANDI) has suggested some strong measures
to guarantee the cashflow of the employers and alleviate the COVID-19 economic crisis
(García, 2020).

   The Colombian’s reaction against the outbreak of COVID-19 has not covered the
relevant standards suggested by the ILO, up to the 10th of April. Therefore, it is proposed
to implement a deferral or waiver of the social security contributions to reduce labour
costs. Second, tax concessions for employees in emergency-related sectors, tax exemption
over their labour income, and incentives to retired workers to temporarily return to the
workforce. And third, economic support to informal workers and dependent workers on
layoff. (ILO, 2020)


https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777                                                        3
 Juan Pablo López Moreno                                                    Italian Labour Law e-Journal
 Luz Angela Duarte González                                                Special Issue 1, Vol. 13 (2020)
 Juliana Morad                                                Covid-19 and Labour Law. A Global Review
                                                                                Section: National Reports




   Despite the worries shown to support employers, self-employers, and employees, some
measures have still needed to be implemented. All in all, the Colombian government is
taken clear and daily actions to adapt the norms and institutions in the country in order to
thrive after the COVID-19 outbreak.


                                               Bibliography

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los empresarios de la región frente a emergencia por Covid-19.
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Education International. (2020, marzo 31). Colombia: Sindicato de la educación crea un
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García, A. (2020). “Colombia necesita un plan de rescate de su economía”: Andi. El País.
https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/necesita-un-plan-de-rescate-de-su-economia-
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ILO. (2020, marzo 19). What are the key policies that will mitigate the impacts of COVID-
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Semana. (2020, marzo 20). La dura carta de médicos al Gobierno por condiciones
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Copyright © 2020 Juan Pablo López Moreno, Luz Angela Duarte González, Juliana
Morad. This article is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License




https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10777                                                             4
