In the midst of a significant decrease in coronavirus cases that in Colombia has not exceeded a thousand cases per day for the last week, workers and legal experts have launched an alert due to the increasing difficulties in issuing a disability and isolation due to coronavirus.
According to Adriana Escobar, an expert in labor law, although through Joint Circular 004 of 2022, the isolation period for symptomatic and asymptomatic people was made more flexible, the issuance of this guideline has not solved the problem for employers from the beginning. of the pandemic, about who should be responsible for paying the costs for isolation and disabilityis.
“A situation that can directly affect employers, who will not receive reimbursement for disabilities and for workers access to medical care in a timely manner, since when a worker files an isolation order for a contact with a person whose result is positive for Covid-19 and/or for presenting some symptoms related to this disease, they are not always granted a disability that, regardless of its origin, can be recovered from the Social Security Health System”, assured the expert.
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In this way, Escobar, a member of CMS Rodríguez-Azuero, also assures that it is necessary to make a call urgent to the National Government so that a balance is found between workers and employersso that there are alternatives that alleviate the labor costs of the employees to guarantee employment protection, especially in companies where the resources are not sufficient to guarantee without major trauma the cost overrun generated by said isolations, especially when they occur in an irregular manner. repetitive.
The expert also explains that this situation is presented by the multiple changes of the norm, because all companies and employers, natural persons, have faced economic challenges, of interpretation and implementation of administrative and regulatory measures for their particular case. “In particular, the policies implemented for the proper management of its human resources during the pandemic and that have constantly varied with mandatory quarantines, contagion spikes, and comorbidities,” he said.
Therefore, it is suggested that due to unforeseen circumstances in terms of preventive isolation, reactive isolation, disability coverage and the measures that must be implemented, it is advisable for the employer to maintain compliance with its biosafety protocols, without forgetting that each business sector and employer can take a step forward by designing their own protocols tailored to their circumstances and needs, in order to prevent contagion and the economic sustainability of the business.
