Article 1.

Any employer who hinders or attempts to hinder, directly or indirectly, the collective or individual exercise of union rights of employees will be punished by the fine foreseen at number 2 of article 26 of the Penal Code.

In the case of a repeat offence, the fine will be that foreseen at number 3 of said article 26 and the offender may be sentenced to imprisonment of three months to one year.

Article 2.

Are notably considered has hindrances to the free exercise of union rights the maneuvers of an employer tending:

1. To layoff, to deny the normal promotion or in prejudicing in any way in the rights resulting from the contract of employment, the law or the custom, an employee who exercises their functions or union activities;

2. To cause the prejudice to an employee who is a member of an union who seeks to obtain better working conditions, or who, in that same purpose, acts as a worker’s delegate or takes part in a conciliation commission or arbitration;

3. To cause the same prejudice to an employee who provokes an intervention by the labour inspector, who reports to the public powers an infringement to the laws or regulations or who testifies in court in a legal proceeding or in proceedings engaged against an employer following the non-compliance of legal or contractual dispositions on the work;

4. To encourage or to hinder the adhesion to a collective organization by means of pressure tactics directed against the employee at the time of their hiring or during their employment;

5. To refuse to conclude a collective bargaining agreement with the qualified representatives of employees when they are normally requested to do so;

6. To intervene directly or indirectly in the organization or in the administration of a labour organization or to support it financially or otherwise.

Article 3.

The threat to inflict to an employee the prejudices enumerated in number 1 of the preceding article, by reason of the facts listed in numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the same article, is punishable by the penalties foreseen in article 1 of the present law.

Article 4.

Where, in a prosecution intended by application of the dispositions of the present law, all the facts and circumstances that constitute the infraction are established with the exception of the motive that motivated the action of the employer, it will incur to the latter to prove that they were not motivated by the motive alleged in the prosecution.