The Justice declared unconstitutional a key article of the new labor law

The decision was made within the framework of a case by the dismissal of a worker of a laundry that occurred in 2022.

Judges Enrique Catani and Gabriela Vázquez concluded that article 55 of the new labor law establishes a differentiated treatment for labor credits that already They were being prosecuted at the time the law was passed.

According to the court, this causes an effective reduction of up to 33% with respect to compensation calculated under the general regime provided for in the same legislation.

It is that the questioned article 55 says that credits from individual employment relationships in pending lawsuits and still pending a final ruling, as of the date of entry into force of the law, including complaint resources that are pending resolution, “in no case the result, applying the guidelines of subsection a) of this article, may be higher than the amount derived from adding to the historical capital the sum resulting from the application of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to it. provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) with plus a fee three percent interest (3%) annually”.

But next line he adds: “The resulting value may not be less than sixty-seven percent (67%) of the calculation obtained by applying the guidelines of subsection b) of this article”.

In his vote, Judge Catani maintained that the questioned article “does not pass the constitutionality test” because violates rights and guarantees recognized by the National Constitution.

The ruling indicates that the norm affects the property right of reduce the economic value of judicially recognized credits. It also considers that it violates the principle of equality before the law by establishing a less favorable situation for those who resorted to Justice to claim their labor rights.

Furthermore, the magistrates understood that the update mechanism provided for by law generates a legal withdrawal on part of the worker’s debt.

For the judges, that formula generates a significant decrease in the amounts received by workers whose files were already being processed when the reform came into effect.

The court considered that the damage falls exclusively on those who initiated legal actions to claim the collection of their credits, without sufficient grounds to justify this difference in treatment.

The resolution of Chamber I adds to a similar precedent issued by Chamber VI of the National Chamber of Labor. However, other chambers of the same jurisdiction – Chambers II and VIII – adopted an opposite position and endorsed the constitutionality of article 55.

This disparity in criteria should be resolved by the Supreme Court.