Chile’s Chamber of Deputies plenary session on 23 October promises to be a landmark assembly, for on this day the opposition-dominated chamber will likely vote for draft legislation formulated by two communist-party deputies. The text, which dates back to 2017, intends for weekly working time to fall from 45 hours to 40 hours (c.f. article No. 11330). Public opinion polls show people are backing this bill as they toil in a country with working hours among the highest in the OECD. Alongside this another piece of draft legislation, the liberal right Sebastián Piñera’s government’s ‘more flexible work’ bill, which has the backing of employers, but which is otherwise highly unpopular, has, since May 2019, been sitting on the shelf gathering dust at the Congressional Commission for Labor (c.f. article No. 11226).
In order to secure adoption of the draft law brought by the communist party members, Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola, a number of amendments have been negotiated with the other opposition parties in a bid to win a clear majority, which guarantee the reduction in working time would be gradual and spread over five years for certain sectors, and especially for SMEs, (c.f. article No. 11330). Once adopted by the Chamber of Deputies the draft passes for its second reading to the Senate Chamber (als
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