Labor Lawyers in Lomas de Zamora & Southern Greater Buenos Aires

If you work — or were fired — in Lomas de Zamora, Banfield, Temperley, Adrogué, Monte Grande or Ezeiza, your claim is not heard in the City courts and does not go through SECLO. It goes to the Labor Courts of the Lomas de Zamora Judicial District, seated in Banfield, ruling in a single instance under provincial procedural law.

1. Which court system applies: Buenos Aires Province, not the National Labor Courts

Lomas de Zamora sits in the Province of Buenos Aires. That is not a mailing-address detail: it determines which judges hear you, under which procedural statute, and with which appeals. The Judiciary Organisation Act 5.827 lists the Labor Courts among the bodies of the provincial system: panels of three judges, running the procedure of Act 11.653.

A reform was layered on top of that, and it changes how cases are litigated in Banfield today. Act 15.057 (Official Gazette, 27/11/2018) was to replace the three-judge panels with single-judge courts plus Labor Courts of Appeal. The Province's Supreme Court suspended it through Resolution 3199/19, because that structure did not exist. In July 2024, Resolution SC 1840/24 lifted that suspension and declared the provisions of Act 15.057 listed in its Annex immediately applicable, even before the existing three-judge panels. Sections 7, 22, 71 to 81, 87 and 90 to 102 were left out: the ones that presuppose Courts of Appeal and single-judge courts that are still not operating. The regime governing your file is hybrid: three judges, a single instance and an oral trial hearing, with most of Act 15.057's rules already in force.

Single instance means something concrete: there is no ordinary appeal against the judgment. Only the extraordinary remedies before the Provincial Supreme Court are available, under section 55 of Act 11.653 and section 161 of the Provincial Constitution: misapplication of law, nullity and unconstitutionality. They are filed within ten days (s. 279 of the provincial Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure), require an address for service in La Plata and require clearing the minimum amount of section 278 of that code. The Court accepts two exceptions to that threshold: a judgment breaching its own binding case law, or a claim of undetermined or non-monetary value.

2. "Zona Sur" is not one jurisdiction: it is three judicial districts

The southern suburbs are not a single forum. Depending on the district where you worked or where the company sits, your file lands in different judicial districts, with different courts and different seats.

The choice is not free. Section 3 of the provincial procedural statute gives you a three-way option when you are the claimant: the court where the contract was signed, the court where you performed your work, or the court of the defendant's domicile. The Province's Supreme Court reads that rule as protective of the worker.

If you live in Lanús but worked in a plant in Burzaco, you have a real choice between Avellaneda-Lanús and Lomas de Zamora, and that decision is made before filing. Act 15.057 also made territorial jurisdiction non-waivable: no other forum can be agreed in the contract. And if the employer is the one suing you — to deposit a final settlement, for instance — it must do so before the court of your own domicile.

3. Working in the Province is not the same as working in the City

If you work in the southern suburbs there is one step you should not take: SECLO. Section 1 of Act 24.635 is explicit: mandatory prior conciliation covers claims "within the jurisdiction of the national labor courts". If your court is provincial, SECLO has no jurisdiction over your case. The Province has no equivalent mandatory pre-trial stage: conciliation before the provincial Labour Ministry (Act 10.149) is voluntary. You can file straight away.

A 2026 change sharpens the contrast. Act 27.802 (OG 6/3/2026), in sections 78 to 94, amended Act 18.345 governing national labor procedure: it replaced court-driven with party-driven case management and introduced dismissal for want of prosecution (six months at first instance; three on appeal and in summary proceedings). The Province already had that institution — section 12, last paragraph, of Act 11.653, which Act 15.057 kept with the same time limits — but with a safeguard: before granting it, the court must first give you five days' notice to take a useful procedural step.

The City's labor jurisdiction is also changing hands: the agreement transferring the National Labor Courts to CABA was signed on 9 February 2026, ratified as Annex I to Act 27.802 and approved by the City Legislature on 28 August 2026, with gradual implementation and no retroactive effect. The City has already created ten courts and a Labor Court of Appeals (Act 6.789) and its own procedural code (Act 6.790). None of that reaches your file if your court sits in Banfield, Lanús or Quilmes. If your case is indeed a City case, see our CABA and Microcentro area page.

4. Step by step for a worker in the southern suburbs

1. Telegram exchange. You serve notice through the free labor telegram under Act 23.789. That is the act that puts the employer in default and later underpins a constructive dismissal.
2. No stop at SECLO. There is no mandatory prior conciliation. If you still want to try a settlement, the provincial route is voluntary.
3. Filing. Before the Labor Court of whichever district you pick within the three-way option of section 3. Once filed, jurisdiction is fixed.
4. Free access and power of attorney. You are exempt from court fees and only a sworn undertaking is required (s. 27, Act 15.057). No notarial power of attorney is needed: a letter of authority with the signature certified by a notary, an authorised court officer or the clerk is enough (s. 28, Act 15.057; s. 23, Act 11.653). See the costs of a labor lawsuit.
5. Service and defence. The company answers, raises its defences and offers evidence.
6. Preliminary hearing. Within twenty days of the answer (s. 38, Act 15.057): settlement, curing of procedural defects, fixing of the disputed facts and admission of evidence. This is where most settlements close; see how courtroom conciliation hearings work.
7. Trial hearing. An oral hearing before the three judges: witnesses testify and the parties and experts are examined (s. 54, Act 15.057). Judgment is delivered on the spot or within twenty days.
8. Judgment. No appeal: ten days for the extraordinary remedy, if the requirements are met. See how long a labor lawsuit takes.

5. Workplace accidents: Medical Board No. 37 and which court reviews it

If you were injured or fell ill at work, the road does not start at the courthouse. Act 27.348 (OG 24/2/2017) made the prior stage before the Medical Boards mandatory and exclusive, and the Province adhered through Act 14.997 (OG 8/1/2018). The Supreme Court of Argentina upheld that system in Pogonza v. Galeno ART (2/9/2021) and the Province's Supreme Court in Marchetti (L. 121.939, 13/5/2020), reaffirmed in Szakacs, Delgadillo and Orellana.

In the southern suburbs the competent body is Medical Board No. 37, seated in Lanús with a branch in Lomas de Zamora (Banfield), covering workers from Lomas de Zamora, Almirante Brown, Esteban Echeverría, Ezeiza, Lanús and Avellaneda. Before you attend, read how the Medical Board procedure and hearing works.

Once that stage is exhausted, the ruling is reviewed through an ordinary labor action before the Labor Court, within ninety judicial working days from service of the ruling (s. 2, subs. j, Act 15.057, in force from the outset by virtue of its s. 103). It is a fatal deadline, and the one we most often see missed.

Here a dispute arises that exists only in this zone. The Province's Supreme Court held in Soria (L. 123.474) that jurisdiction belongs to the Labor Court seated in the town where the intervening Medical Board is located. Since Board No. 37 is seated in Lanús with a branch in Banfield, depending on where the file is deemed to have been processed your appeal may end up in Avellaneda-Lanús rather than Lomas de Zamora: worth settling before filing, not after a jurisdictional objection. The maths is in how workers' compensation is calculated and the overview in work accidents and workers' compensation.

New in 2026: section 154 of Act 27.802 added section 4 bis to Act 27.348 and imposed on adhering jurisdictions — the Province is one — strict application of the Disability Assessment Table of Decree 659/96 and the creation of Forensic Medical Bodies or equivalent agencies.

6. What people actually do for a living in the southern suburbs

In Burzaco, Almirante Brown district, sits the Almirante Brown Planned Industrial Sector (SIPAB), created on 30 December 1993, with more than three hundred and thirty companies: metal-mechanics, auto parts, metallurgy, chemicals and plastics, food processing, construction and logistics and warehousing predominate. It is crossed by provincial routes 4, 210 and 16, which turned it into a freight hub. In Llavallol, Lomas de Zamora district, the Lomas de Zamora Industrial Park (Polinsur S.A.) also operates, across some twenty hectares.

That mix determines which collective agreements come into play most often here: CCT 260/75 of the metalworkers' union in metallurgical and auto-parts plants, CCT 40/89 for freight transport and logistics in warehouses and delivery, and CCT 130/75 for retail employees in shops, distributors and back offices. That is where the most repeated claims come from: wrong collective-agreement classification, a grade below the actual job, unpaid overtime, and machine or load-handling accidents. If part of your wage came without a payslip, see unregistered employment.

7. Mistakes that cost dearly in the Buenos Aires Province labor courts

• Going to SECLO believing it is mandatory. If your court is provincial, it is not, and the time you lose runs against the two-year limitation period. The step that does apply in the City is set out in mandatory SECLO conciliation.
• Picking the wrong judicial district. The section 3 option is yours, but it is exercised by filing, and jurisdiction is then fixed and non-waivable.
• Letting the file go quiet. Six months of inactivity (three in summary proceedings) trigger dismissal for want of prosecution. And if it is granted, section 2547 of the Civil and Commercial Code treats the interruption of the limitation period as never having happened: you can lose the whole claim.
• Waiting for an appeal that does not exist. The trial hearing is your only chance to produce oral evidence before the judges who will decide. What is not proven there cannot be recovered on appeal, because there is no appeal court.
• Letting the ninety judicial working days lapse after the Medical Board ruling: after that, the ruling becomes final.
• Signing at the insurer or at the company without counsel. Before signing, run the numbers with the section 245 LCT formula and review dismissal without cause.

If your case is in the northern suburbs, the provincial scheme is the same but the judicial district changes: we explain it in labor lawyer in San Isidro and Vicente López.

8. Frequently Asked Questions