by Catalina Delgado from the RSM UY team in Zonamerica

 

Remote work  regime in Free Zones

 

On March 6, Decree No. 69/024 was published, regulating the teleworking regime in Free Zones, in view of the modification introduced by art. 214 of the Accountability Law of 2022 to article 14 ter of Law No. 15,921.

 

According to the modification introduced, the Executive Branch had to consider, when regulating the conditions of remote work for Free Zones, influential situations - not contemplated in the previous regulations - such as the distance from the worker's home address, the number of personnel dependent on the User or the relevance of the associated investment. Additionally, the Executive Branch was expressly prevented from conditioning the use of teleworking to a minimum number of dependent employees that the Users have.

 

The new regulations establish limits in accordance with the legislative modification, and frame the agreements for the provision of services in the teleworking modality, establishing the following:

 

- Dependent workers who agree to do so in their employment contract may carry out their tasks in teleworking mode, as long as they fulfill a minimum of 60% of their total monthly workload in the face-to-face work mode. The daily work day cannot be divided between both modalities.

 

-10% of dependent workers may be exempt from compliance with the 60% in-person requirement, provided that this is established in the agreement entered into between the User and his dependent.

 

- In all cases, the sum of contact hours completed by the total number of workers dependent on the User in a month must cover at least 60% of the group's total hours in that period.

 

The decree mentions that the general rule (60% in-person and 40% remote) may be modified, adjusting to 55% in-person and 45% remote, in some circumstances:

 

1. When the distance between the dependent worker's private home and his or her usual place of work is a minimum of 200km. This percentage exception is applicable only to the worker who meets this condition.

 

2. When the User has at least 15 employees.

 

3. When the investment made by the User in tangible assets of its fixed assets is or has been greater than 10,000,000 UI in two consecutive closed fiscal years (with the value of the UI at the end of the respective financial years).

 

Exceptions 2 and 3 are generic, they contain independent NOT cumulative requirements, and as long as the User meets any of the two conditions, they benefit from the broader remote work regime for all workers dependent on them.

 

Finally, some important considerations:

 

-The dependent worker can only provide services in teleworking mode at his or her private home located in national territory.

 

- Human resources that directly carry out operational production or manufacturing, distribution or logistics activities are NOT included in the authorization. Nor will it be authorized for the development of substantive commercial activities defined in art. 14 Law No. 15,921.

 

- Developers must keep a record of the agreements signed between the Users of the FTZ they develop and their dependent workers, in accordance with the conditions established by the National Directorate of Free Zones.

 

- The DNZF will establish the processing requirements and procedures to comply with the Decree.

 

The Decree repeals the previous regulations (Decree No. 319/022) and will come into force 10 days from its publication.