Article 44 of the labor reform – which modified the payment of salaries during leave due to illness or non-work accident – no longer exists in the project approved in Deputies. It was eliminated at the last minute to guarantee the votes of allied and provincial blocs, after strong resistance that included criticism from pro-dialogue senators, the PRO and even governors. However, the debate about its origin persists: while most sources attributed it to Federico Sturzenegger, political analyst Jorge Asís attributed it directly to President Javier Milei.
In Mirtha Legrand’s program, Asís was categorical when referring to the controversial section. “It was a revival that didn’t work out… Sturzenegger and especially the presidentthat of course no one can say that it was the President of the Republic,” he stated. To the surprise of the host (“How?”), he added: “Mrs. Karina denies it, but it is known that someone said ‘first you vote and then you read it’.”
The comment broke the silence that the ruling party maintained about the authorship of the initiative. Until then, the cut was attributed almost exclusively to the Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation, Federico Sturzeneggerwho had defended it without nuances: “If you were injured playing soccer, where you made a decision and the employer has nothing to do with it, you get 50%”. According to various sources, the proposal took up ideas that Sturzenegger himself had promoted during the election campaign. Patricia Bullrich and which he later incorporated into the libertarian package.
The controversial article 44 modified article 208 of the Employment Contract Law and established that, in the event of an illness or accident not linked to employment, the worker would be paid 50% of salary if the loss originated from a “voluntary and risky activity”—such as recreational sports—; 75% if it was not voluntary; and 100% only in cases of serious or irreversible pathologiesalthough the wording left margins of interpretation that anticipated judicial conflicts.
The stated objective was reduce litigation and stop abuses with questioned medical certificates. However, the reaction was immediate. From the PRO—with Cristian Ritondo at the head—even the MID and several allied governors warned that, without eliminating that article, they would not support the law. The Government ended up backing down: the project obtained half sanction in Deputies without 44 and returned to the Senate for final approval.
Inside doors, the discomfort was concentrated in Sturzeneggeraccused of having unnecessarily tense the parliamentary negotiation. Even Bullrich admitted that there was “an error” in the writing by not better specifying cases of serious illnesses. But the analyst Jorge Asisclose to power although not automatically aligned, pointed higher: to his own Javier Milei.
The version began to circulate in low voices between legislators and officials. It exposes the discomfort with the tougher measures of the labor package and the difficulty of assigning responsibilities in a climate of legislative urgency. As Assisi summarized: “Luckily it didn’t come out”. But someone took her to the end. And, according to that reading, that someone was the president.
by RN
