Buenos Aires - February 17, 2026 - Total News Agency - TNA. Article 44 of the labor reform approved by the Senate has become the most explosive point of the debate in the Chamber of Deputies because it redefines how much a worker is paid when they suffer from a disease or an 'innocent' accident, i.e., unrelated to work. As written, the text replaces Article 208 of the Labor Contract Law and opens the door for medical leave to no longer be paid at 100%: it establishes a partial remuneration scheme ranging from 50% to 75% of the basic salary, with periods depending on whether the worker has dependents or not. The core of the change indicates that if the inability to work is linked to a 'voluntary and conscious' activity by the worker that involved some health risk, the remuneration during the leave will be 50% of the basic salary. The ruling party admitted that the text does not distinguish 'severe, degenerative, or irreversible' pathologies, a gap that came under scrutiny due to fears that complex cases — cancer treatments, prolonged illnesses, conditions requiring surgery or extensive rehabilitation — could be trapped in a partial remuneration rule. However, the discussion growing in legislative corridors and union halls goes further: the article says nothing about the most frequent and daily universe of common illnesses that explain most work absences, such as flu, fever, respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, severe stomach pain, intense cramps, migraines, dehydration, or a sudden decompensation. The second is technical but has political implications: the reform does not detail with precision what universe of situations will fall under 50% and which under 75%, and leaves that classification tied to interpretations of whether there was a 'voluntary and conscious' activity with a health risk. At that point, the debate is no longer limited to severe diseases. The first is of a social nature: the salary cut during a common illness or accident directly impacts household income and transfers the cost of the contingency to the worker at their moment of greatest vulnerability. And if there is an 'insurmountable' discrepancy between the initial diagnosis and the employer's medical control, the text allows appealing to a medical board in an official institution where this is provided for or requesting opinions from renowned public or private institutes, with costs that —in certain assumptions— the employer must bear. But the discussion that opens is more uncomfortable: how to prevent the new regime from ultimately functioning as a generalized cut for common ailments, and how to prevent the ambiguous wording from turning every absence due to flu, pneumonia, acute discomfort, or severe cramp into a file of dispute between certificates, controls, and medical boards. The new scheme requires that certificates include diagnosis, treatment, and days of rest, issued by authorized professionals and digitally signed through authorized platforms. It also does not clearly address the situation of a worker who must be absent due to the serious illness of a child or a dependent family member, beyond extending periods according to family burdens, without specifying how to reconcile this scenario with the logic of partial remuneration. This gray area feeds the main fear of the dialogist blocs: that the 'fix' proposed by the Government will be limited to fully covering a subset of severe illnesses —under strict verification conditions— but will leave the bulk of common cases unanswered, where the real conflict arises from proof, medical control, and the interpretation of the cause. This partial payment would apply for three months if the worker had no dependents, or for six months if they did. With Congress under pressure from the legislative calendar and the streets on fire with union rejection, Article 44 has become the decisive test of the reform: if the text is only corrected for extreme cases, the controversy will remain intact for millions of ordinary situations that are part of real working life. This section, presented as a way to reduce abuses, is seen by critics as a mechanism that can multiply conflicts in short-term leaves, precisely the most frequent.
