This is how the reduction of the working day will impact

If the demands of faculty, unions, and administrative staff include a reduction in their current workload in the sector, there will be economic repercussions for higher education institutions. The regulation, which will entail a gradual reduction in the number of hours over the next four years, will not affect salaries, benefits, or the acquired rights of all workers in the country.

According to the Law, henceforth the Substantive Labor Code will state that the maximum duration of the ordinary workday will be forty-two (42) hours per week, which may be distributed, by mutual agreement, between employer and worker, in 5 or 6 days, per week.

Until now, the Code stipulated that the maximum number of hours was 48. Shorter times are at the employer's discretion.

Why would the impact on higher education institutions be minimal?

For the most part, higher education tends to operate on a 40-hour workweek, a long-standing practice based on both the Labor Code and university autonomy. The custom (although academics are not the type to clock in and out to track eight hours a day) is to work Monday through Friday and, exceptionally, on Saturdays.

With few exceptions (especially in small higher education institutions), the academic workload of teachers in the Colombian higher education sector is measured at 40 hours per week, not 48. The same applies to some administrative staff, especially secretarial and operational staff, as well as general services, security, and cleaning staff.

In a ruling dated April 30, 2008, the Council of State, Administrative Litigation Chamber, First Section, Magistrate Camilo Arciniegas Andrade had indicated that "the working day of teachers has a maximum duration of forty (40) hours per week, as stated by the Ministry of Education in the response to the lawsuit.".

Given the Colombian tendency to seek diverse interpretations of the Law, it would not be surprising if, as the reduction in working hours progresses, unions or groups of teachers and administrators consider that the reduction from 48 to 42 hours, now defined by the Law, should be extended to a reduction from 40 to 36 hours per week, for example.

If these requests are granted, the direct impacts would be:

• Increased academic workload -classes- for teachers, to avoid hiring more.
• Increase in part of the operational and administrative staff of the IES.
• Increase in the value of the teaching hour to be paid, according to the calculation formula defined in article 106 of Law 30 of 1992.

For now, the issue is not causing concern or having a direct impact, especially during a pandemic and with reduced income at higher education institutions. The situation calls for preserving jobs rather than demanding new requirements.

FOUNTAIN: The Observatory of the Colombian University

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