Our partner Jorge Arredondo spoke with CNN Chile about the government’s announcement regarding regulatory amendments to the Karin Law in light of problems with its implementation two years after it went into effect.
On Wednesday, August 12, the government announced that it is preparing regulatory amendments to the Karin Law, citing the massive number of reports of harassment, abuse, and violence in the workplace that exceed the Labor Directorate’s (DT) capacity to respond.
The DT reports that it has received a cumulative total of 66,000 complaints filed under this legislation from its entry into force in August 2024 through December 2025 (the 2026 report has not yet been published). Of the total complaints, 44% were rejected or deemed inadmissible.
The assessment by the Ministry of Labor—led by Tomás Rau—is that there is a high volume of complaints being filed with this agency, which is overburdening the system and causing delays in resolving the allegations.
“What we’re seeing is that the law isn’t being implemented correctly (…). We need to work toward better implementation of the law, and that is the aim of these new regulations,” explained the secretary of state.
The law stipulates a 30-day deadline for conducting these investigations, but they are currently taking six to eight months, which is having detrimental effects on work environments and businesses.
In the initial phase, the plan is to explore how to improve the admissibility standards for accepting these complaints.
The president of the Confederation of Production and Commerce (CPC), Susana Jiménez, argued that “there are many complaints being filed. Many of them are entirely legitimate, while others are sometimes frivolous, and there is no process in place to screen them based on minimum admissibility criteria.”
The Experts’ Position
The main problems with the implementation of this law stem from the delays it is causing. Specifically, the Labor Directorate has not increased its staff to review these types of complaints, resulting in very long response times.
“In the meantime, people continue to work in the same workplace—with safety measures in place, of course—but this has effects not only on the work environment but also on productivity, talent retention, and career prospects,” added Jorge Arredondo, a partner at Labor Group az.
David Bravo, director of the UC Survey Center, stated that “it is very urgent to make procedural changes that will somehow alleviate the burden on smaller companies while also improving certain aspects of the law.”
Read the CNN Prime article (August 13) here:
