Teleworking is here to stay, beyond its necessity in view of the difficult conditions facing the country in all respects, including the epidemic COVID-19. It is not an exceptional labor relationship, but one of the forms regulated for those activities that conform to its characteristics. The other general rules of the labor legislation are applicable to this modality, adjusting or making more flexible the traditional ones such as the conceptual change from "office hours" to "hours dedicated to work".
Distance work or teleworking is not born with the coronavirus, in the need to adapt working life to the difficult situations imposed by the pandemic: it arises in the 70s by the American physicist, Jack Nilles, in the midst of the oil crisis. Teleworking is here to stay, beyond its necessity in view of the difficult conditions faced by the country in all respects, including the COVID-19 epidemic. It is not an exceptional labor relationship, but one of the regulated forms for those activities that fit its characteristics.
The other general rules of labor legislation are applicable to this modality, adjusting or relaxing traditional rules such as the conceptual change from "office hours" to "hours dedicated to work".
Although telework arises in the past decade of the 70s, it was not until the XXI century when countries began to contemplate it in their respective labor laws. In Cuba, for example, there was not much tradition, because the process of computerization of society is relatively young. We can say that the same causes of Jack to invent it was Cuba's, to justify it in 2019 by the energy crisis, the result of the criminal Yankee blockade against our nation forces us to this alternative.
Nowadays, it is an important provision for the protection of workers, protecting them from exposure to the risks involved in traveling on public transportation, working in enclosed and sometimes small premises, and systematic contact with public transportation. All this without ignoring other advantages for the employee and the employer, such as reducing expenses in terms of food, electricity, water, transportation, and others. But it is necessary to plan well and control the results, which corresponds to the employers, to the managers of each entity and above all, to the immediate superior boss of each worker.
In one of the broadcasts of the Cuban Television ¨Mesa Redonda¨, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera, Minister of Labor and Social Security, ratified that none of these work modalities are exclusive to the current epidemiological stage and that since they have legal backing, they do not require additional authorizations, and therefore their application is a faculty of the administrations of the labor entities.
If we review the measures established for each phase of COVID-19 recovery, we will find that the first phase establishes the promotion of remote work in all activities that are justified and whose conditions allow it; the second and third phases establish the improvement of implementation and control, based on the definition of the positions that by their nature and functions can use it, the permanent or partial nature of the modality, the measures for the management of classified information and cybersecurity and the control system to measure the results.
According to information from Rolando Reyes, sub-director of employment at the Labor Directorate in the province of Holguín, many people are working remotely in the territory, a discrete figure but one that is increasing as the territories move backwards in the phases of the pandemic.
In the present circumstances, the application of telecommuting is related to the protection of workers' lives, a fundamental element within the Cuban productive process, so what is the position of the unions in this area, why continue to adhere to traditional contractual schemes, or is it a matter of waiting for guidance from above, even when the law provides autonomy in action for the case.