P.R. Laws tit. 29, § 282
Any employee who receives a compensation less than that fixed by §§ 271—288 of this title for regular hours and extra hours of work, or for the period fixed for meals, shall be entitled to recover from his employer, through civil action, the sums unpaid, plus an equal sum as liquidation of damages, in addition to the costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees of the proceeding.
No employer may take reprisals, dismiss, suspend or affect the employment or working conditions of any employee in any way whatsoever for the sole reason of his/her refusal to accept a flexible work schedule as authorized in § 274 of this title. Any employer who incurs said conduct may be sued for an amount equal to twice the amount of the damages said action has caused the employee. He/she may also be required to reinstate the worker in his/her employment and to cease and desist of the act in question. Nothing in §§ 271—288 of this title may prevent an employee who has initially rejected an agreement for a flexible work schedule, from subsequently accepting said agreement.
Any employee whose employment or working conditions have been affected because his/her employer has incurred the conduct described in the preceding paragraph, may file a recourse before the Court of First Instance. The Secretary of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico may file said action on behalf and in representation of the employee thus affected. When the suit is heard, the burden of proof shall rest on the employer to refute the presumption that he/she has taken reprisals against the employee for refusing to accept a flexible work schedule.
These claims may be handled in accordance with the regular procedure of the complaint procedure established in §§ 3118 et seq. of Title 32, as heretofore or hereafter amended.
The judicial claim may be filed by one or several employees, in his or their names, and that of other employees who are in similar circumstances; Provided, That after the claim has been judicially instituted, it may be settled between the parties with the intervention of the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources or any of the attorneys of the Department of Labor and Human Resources appointed by said Secretary, and the approval of the court. The Secretary of Labor and Human Resources shall determine administratively which judicial or extrajudicial settlements shall require his personal intervention, establsihing the criteria which shall prevail to such ends, through regulations or administrative order. Every extrajudicial settlement in regard to the payment of the wages for regular hours, extra hours of work, the time specified to partake of food, or the payment of the sum equal to that claimed, which this act fixes as liquidation of damages, shall be null; Provided, however, That for the purposes of §§ 271—288 of this title, a settlement made before the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources or before any of the attorneys or officials of the Department of Labor and Human Resources appointed by said Secretary shall be valid.
Likewise, every extrajudicial compromise reached through the intervention of mediators of labor-management disputes from the Department of Labor and Human Resources shall be valid, subject to the norms or criteria the Secretary may establish to such effect by regulation or administrative order.
History
—May 15, 1948, No. 379, p. 1254, § 13; Apr. 26, 1968, No. 25, p. 42; May 19, 1976, No. 47, p. 128; May 10, 1982, No. 8, p. 16, § 1; renumbered as § 14 by § 5 and amended by § 3 on July 20, 1995, No. 83.