Puerto Rico Archives - Laborsphere

Puerto Rico Amends Domestic Abuse Prevention and Intervention Act

On July 28, 2023, the Governor of Puerto Rico signed Law No. 74 of 2023 (“Law 74”) into law. Law 74 amends Puerto Rico’s Act for the Prevention and Intervention with Domestic Violence, adding additional protections for victims of domestic violence.

The amendment includes “economic violence” as a modality for domestic abuse. “Economic violence” is defined as:

“[C]onduct directed at impairing the present or future financial capacity, economic stability, or lodging and housing security through threats, coercion, fraud, restriction, or preventing access to or use of accounts, assets, financial information, identification or credit cards, money, or government assistance; concealment of information related to the payment of rent or mortgages, or forced evictions; exercising undue influence on a person’s decisions or behavior or financial and economic decisions of a person, or interference in a person’s employment relationship or performance or in his or her own business. It also includes misusing the person’s financial resources, including money, assets and credit for personal gain, and preventing access to formal courses of study and impairing the victim’s academic performance.”

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Reforms to Puerto Rico’s Labor Law Declared Null and Void Ab Initio

On March 3, 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain, presiding over Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, issued an opinion declaring Act 41-2022 (Act No. 41) null and void ab initio.

Law 41-2022 Amendments

Act No. 41, which took effect in June 2022, amended several employment regulations that had been established by the 2017 Labor Transformation and Flexibility Act (LTFA). As previously reported, Act No. 41 sought to broaden several labor rights applicable to employees in the private sector. Specifically, the Act provided the following employment benefits:

Limited the probationary period to a maximum of three months;
Increased accrual of vacation and sick leave;
Extended the statute of limitations for workers to claim benefits derived from an employment contract to three years;
Required bonuses for eligible employees;
Mandated severance pay, calculated based on years of service, for employees dismissed without just cause from positions for an indefinite term;
Provided for ambiguous provisions to be interpreted in favor of the employee;
Directed employers to provide meal periods based on number of hours worked; and
Established that certain employees were entitled to one day of rest for every six days worked.

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Reforms to Puerto Rican Labor Law Reinstate Employee-Friendly Measures

On June 20, 2022, Puerto Rico’s governor signed into law Act No. 41-2022 (“the Act”). The Act rolls back certain changes brought about by the Labor Transformation and Flexibility Act (“LTFA”). The LTFA was enacted in 2017 in an effort to reenergize the island’s economy following its effective bankruptcy.

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