Understanding Labor Strikes: Rights, Procedures, and Effects

Posted on Apr 2, 2025 in Law & Jurisprudence

Understanding Labor Strikes

Strike: A collective suspension of work or activity that affects the normal functioning of the production process (e.g., tortoise operation) by workers in a labor dispute. (494 LOT and 175 RLOT)

Subjects: Exerted by trade unions or coalition workers (176 RLOT)

Purpose:

  • To amend or stop taking action regarding working conditions.
  • To conclude a collective agreement.
  • To comply with the collective agreement agreed upon.

Effects:

  • Irremovability: Workers cannot be dismissed, transferred, or have their working conditions worsened, nor can action be taken against them while the conflict is ongoing (505 LOT).
  • The service time of a worker is not considered interrupted by their absence from work, provided that the conflict has been handled according to law (LOT 506).

Strike Procedure (497 LOT)

  • Trade unions, federations, or confederations representing the majority of workers.
  • It must exhaust the grievance procedures provided by law or collective agreements (Art. 473 LOT).

Grievance Procedure

A Labor Inspector is obliged to open a negotiation phase between the employer(s) and the respective union(s) to address a dispute that has arisen or is collective in nature. They may participate in person or through a representative to inquire and harmonize their views and interests (473 LOT).

Inform Authorities

Workers and employers must report the beginning and end of the strike to the highest civil authority of the jurisdiction to prevent violations of constitutional rights and maintain public order (501 LOT).

Refusal to Discontinue Work (Art. 470 LOT)

In businesses, establishments, operations, or tasks serving more than ten (10) workers, proceedings must not be interrupted, whether by the employer or workers, if negotiation procedures have been exhausted.

Work Requiring Continuous Operation (498 LOT and 182 RLOT)

  1. Services indispensable to the health of the population.
  2. Service for maintenance and security of the company.
  3. Service for vehicles and aircraft (work cannot be suspended at different sites from the base of operations or routes to the terminal homeland) (499 LOT).
  4. Service in ships:
    1. They cannot stop work on a day out.
    2. When the vessel is anchored at a port in the country, they may stop work and leave the vessel only when they have complied with the requirements (500 LOT).

Minimum Essential Services (Art. 182 RLOT)

  • Health
  • Health and sanitation
  • Production and distribution of drinking water
  • Production and distribution of hydrocarbons and their derivatives
  • Production and distribution of gas and other fuels
  • Production and distribution of staple foods
  • Civil Defense
  • Collection and treatment of urban waste
  • Customs

Solidarity Strike (502 LOT)

Workers in a particular profession or trade who are providing support to other equally active workers in their struggle with their employers do not pursue their own purposes, so it makes no sense to present a petition, but rather a statement of solidarity.

It is exercised within the jurisdiction of the Labor Inspectorate, where the main conflict has arisen.

Procedure (503 LOT)

  1. Declaration of Solidarity with workers in conflict.
  2. Constitution of Board of conciliation:

C) Two (2) representatives of employers and One (1) alternate (representing all the workers and employers who are supporting the beginning and during the conflict).

d) The capacity to mediate in conjunction with the board of conciliation of the conflict.