The Ministry of Labor, through Circular 21 of March 17, 2020, has established employment protection measures, due COVID-19´s containment phase and the declaration of a health emergency.

The Ministry reminds that the Colombian legal system in labor matters provides the following mechanisms:

• Home office: Taking into account that this is a temporary and exceptional measure, considering an occasional situation, it is possible for the employer to authorize work from home without having to comply with the requirements established in Law 1221 of 2008.
• Teleworking: Defined in article 2 of Law 1221 of 2008. Under this modality, the regulations regarding working day, overtime and surcharges do not apply, without this entailing high work burden. The employee’s salary under this modality must be equal to that paid to another employee in the workplace for the same work, in the same town and with the same performance.
  The specific conditions and requirements of this modality, the provision of the service, dependency relationship and obligations of the teleworker, employer and ARL are established in Decree 1072 of 2015, Chapter 5 of Title I, Part 2 of Book II.
• Flexible working hours: As a rule, it is indicated that the working day should be 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. However, this limit can be distributed in different ways during the week, with a minimum of 4 continuous hours and a maximum of 10, without a surcharge for supplementary work and without exceeding the average of 48 hours per week. Employers can also choose to work shifts lasting 6 hours per day and 36 per week, which can be done at any time or day of the week.
  Thus, and given public health events, employers have the power to modify their working hours with the intention of protecting their workers by shortening their working hours or by having successive shifts that avoid the crowding of workers in their facilities, in the same day or in mass transportation systems.
• Annual vacation, advanced and collective: Employees are entitled to 15 working days of paid vacations for each year of services rendered. However, it is possible for the employer to grant employees vacation before the right is caused (advance vacation), as well as to schedule collective vacation, which must be paid with the salary that the employee is receiving at the beginning of their enjoyment. Due to the current situation, employees and employers may agree at any time to start enjoying accumulated, anticipated or collective vacation to adequately face the containment phase of COVID-19.
• Paid leave - salary without service provision: Based on article 57 of the Colombian Labor Code, the employer must grant leave in cases of serious domestic calamity duly proven. Article 140, in turn, provides for the possibility for the employees to continue earning the corresponding salary even when there is no provision of the service due to the employer's fault or disposition. Thus, it is possible that the employer voluntarily and generously determines the possibility for the employee to continue earning salary and relieve him/her of the provision of services.

The mentioned measures do not exempt employers from complying with their obligations, in particular, the payment of salaries, contributions to the Social Security System and other derived from the employment relationship.