The demands by work accidents or occupational diseases 94,102 new lawsuits accumulated between January and September of this year. In this way, it is estimated that the year will close with 124,000 trials, which represent an increase of 6% in relation to the 117,000 that were processed during the year 2023.
The screening was carried out by the Union of Labor Risk Insurers (UART), which warned about the strong growth of the judiciary in the labor jurisdiction and raised the existence of a paradox in the operation of the system.
“Emphasis is again placed on the contradiction that goes through the Occupational Risk system, with fewer accidents (-49%), a drop in deaths (-78%), immediate, comprehensive and quality care, with updated compensation in line with salaries, but the legal claims do not stop growing”, he warned.
In this sense, the UART highlighted that “to give dimension to the distortion, it is enough to compare with what happens in other countries with a similar number of accidents affecting the covered population. With similar accident rate, Argentina presents almost 13 times the judicial system of Spain and 21 times that of Chile. Clearly, a huge problem that affects competitiveness, stops the generation and registration of employment and delays economic development.”
The entity also offered a detail of the number of lawsuits by province, which explains the estimate for the current year of 124,000 new lawsuits.
Three districts top the ranking of labor demands
“The provinces that top the ranking of trials are province of Buenos Aires, CABA and Santa Fe. PBA took 41% of September notifications, followed by CABA (16%) and Santa Fe (13%). The latter is the one that presents the greatest variation in the annual accumulated (29%), compared to the previous year. In the January/September period, each of them recorded alarming numbers: Buenos Aires 38,072 new cases, CABA 17,013 and Santa Fe 12,466. In the country as a whole, in the first 9 months, there were 94,102 lawsuits filed,” he noted.
“Correcting this serious distortion is vital for the Argentine economy and society, which so badly needs to recover quality jobs and eradicate poverty. Resolving this onerous detour, It would help generate more jobs. In fact, the current 10.2 million workers covered by the Occupational Risk system, could be duplicated if the independent (self-employed and monotributistas) unemployed and non-formal workers were included, giving them access to all rights and services. In the meantime, the damage of the exacerbated judicial system conspires against the growth of employment, the development of our economy, and the well-being of the community,” added the UART.
Regarding the solution to this problem, the entity that brings together the ART reiterated the need to “call for a competition to form the Forensic Medical Corps with specialized professionals, and not as it is now, by simple annotation on a list”.
He also proposed “that these professionals receive a salary or fee per medical act and not tied to the result of the trial which, in turn, is tied to the value of the expertise that they themselves determine.”
And finally, he recommended that they properly use the Scale (table for measuring disabilities) and the List of Diseases that form part of the Law.
“In the case of legal claims for work accidents, the implementation of this improvement in the expert procedure, It depends purely and exclusively on justice in the provinces that adhered to Law 27348/17, through their respective highest courts and in CABA at the head of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. All of them must constitute the Forensic Medical Corps (CMF),” he specified.
“Mendoza is the only province that did so recently and the results are generating interesting expectations. In the rest, trials continue to grow,” the UART pointed out.
“If the expert system were indeed modernized and optimized as indicated by the Law, the gap that encourages litigation would be closed. Because? The administrative and judicial procedures would measure with the same yardstick, and the incentive to initiate a lawsuit to obtain the same result would disappear, much more delayed and with the additional cost of intermediary fees,” he concluded.
Source: Ambito
