Our partner Jorge Arredondo spoke with RH Management as part of a report on Chile’s 40-hour workweek law, in which he addressed the limits of administrative interpretation.
The debate over the workweek returned to the forefront of the agenda as soon as the new political cycle began. Days before José Antonio Kast took office, the new government opened the door to reviewing the Labor Directorate’s rulings on the implementation of the 40-hour workweek law, while maintaining the April 26, 2026, deadline, when the weekly workweek must be reduced from 44 to 42 hours. Since then, much of the public discussion has been trapped in a focus almost exclusively on costs, rigidity, and the potential impact on employment. But this framing, dominant in business coverage, leaves out an equally decisive dimension: what kind of life the current organization of working time enables or prevents.
At RH Management, that question is far from trivial. As early as 2024, the publication had emphasized that discussing the workday isn’t just about counting hours, but about considering health, productivity, rest, and work-life balance. Along these lines, content published by RHM has pointed out that in Chile, a significant portion of the day is spent on work-related matters and commuting, that work-related mental health conditions remain among the most prevalent, and that comparative evidence links rest and recovery to better sleep, more positive moods, and higher work performance. More recently, the outlet itself has emphasized that mental health can no longer be treated as an individual issue, but rather as an organizational one, linked to psychosocial risks, work-life balance, prevention, and effective support within companies.
That is why this report does not begin by asking only how much it costs to reduce the workweek, but also how much it costs not to do it right. It is not a matter of denying the complexities of implementation—especially in sectors with demanding operational structures or in smaller companies—but rather of broadening the scope of the debate. The underlying question is whether the 40-hour workweek law will be applied as a genuine tool for improving workers’ quality of life—with positive effects on mental health, shared responsibility, and productivity—or whether it will end up being subsumed by flexibility formulas that, in the name of adaptation, strip its original promise of meaning. At stake in this tension today are not only legal and administrative criteria, but also a deeper definition of how Chile understands work, time, and dignity in working life.
Real Flexibility
On the other side of the debate are those who, while not denying the value of reducing working hours, focus on the limitations of administrative interpretation and the need for greater flexibility. Jorge Arredondo, a labor lawyer, professor of Labor Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and partner at the law firm Albagli Zaliasnik, where he heads the labor practice, argues that the recent controversy stems not so much from the text of the law as from the way in which the previous administration of the Labor Directorate narrowed its scope through rulings that, in some cases, went beyond what was expressly provided by the legislature.
His analysis does not dispute that the public policy of reducing working hours is positive. What he highlights is that its implementation may be affected by interpretations that create tension regarding who is responsible for the reduction, who has the authority to decide how it is implemented, and the preliminary steps that must be taken before it is carried out. He also identifies two other points of friction: the potential inclusion of meal breaks as part of the workday and the scope of Article 22 and the scenarios for exclusion from the workday. Here, his criticism is more direct: he argues that the Labor Directorate’s current position makes it nearly impossible to imagine real cases of workers exempt from working hour limits, because it broadens the concept of “immediate superior supervision” to such an extent that practically any form of monitoring or performance evaluation ends up reclassifying the individual under a standard working hour regime. From his perspective, this ignores the fact that some level of control exists in every employment relationship, and that the real question should be whether or not the worker has autonomy in the actual performance of their duties.
You can read the full article here.
