Our leaders successfully completed training on the new Law 21,643, which updates Chilean regulations on harassment, discrimination and violence in the workplace, requiring companies to establish a protocol for preventing workplace and sexual harassment and violence at work.
This Thursday, August 1, the new law (known as “Ley Karin”) came into force, which updates the Chilean regulations on harassment, discrimination and violence at work and requires companies and government bodies to establish a protocol for preventing workplace and sexual harassment and violence at work. As a result, the leaders of the different areas at SMI-ICE-Chile were trained on the new regulations and the internal procedures that must be implemented in response to this law. The activity was led by lawyer Cristóbal Palomer, from the consulting firm Gestión Global Capacita.
The new law amends the Labour Code to prevent, investigate and penalize workplace and sexual harassment and violence at work. It is named after Karin Salgado, a nursing technician who worked at the Herminda Martín Hospital in Chillán until she committed suicide in November 2019. She filed complaints of persecution and hostility in her work environment, but the situation only worsened after an internal investigation that reduced her salary by half.
A survey carried out by the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention in 2020 showed that 17.8% of women between 15 and 65 years old residing in urban areas of Chile said they had been victims of violence in the workplace at some point in their lives. According to the Labour Directorate, 1,560 workplace harassment complaints were filed in 2021 and the figure increased by 3.6% in 2022.
“As the SMI-ICE-Chile management team, we have decided to train ourselves in this new law, inspired by a firm institutional commitment to protect and guarantee our collaborators’ rights,” explains Francisca Rivero, General Manager of SMI-ICE-Chile. With this knowledge, we can implement a system that complies with the regulations and, most importantly, will help us play a preventive role to promote healthy, collaborative work environments.”
This regulation includes new definitions of workplace harassment, sexual harassment, violence and workplace discrimination. Interestingly, it incorporates a gender perspective in addition to other criteria of confidentiality, speed and impartiality for the investigation, which means that, from now on, employers and management must play an active role in preventing these incidents. Anyone committing such acts is exposed to sanctions like warnings and fines, and if acts are serious, their employment may be terminated. Public officials who fail to comply risk removal from office.
