Metallurgical Industry Labor Attorney (UOM, CCT 260/75)

If you work in a metalworking shop, auto-parts plant, foundry, or metallurgical facility, your job is covered by CCT 260/75, the UOM collective bargaining agreement. You can claim the gap when you perform skilled-worker (oficial) tasks but get paid as a semi-skilled worker, the Saturday-afternoon and Sunday overtime premium, the 20% hazard or high-heat premium that quietly disappeared before your dismissal, and the shortened workday when you work in unhealthy conditions.

1. CCT 260/75 and the trade categories

The industry-wide agreement is CCT 260/75, signed in Buenos Aires on July 24, 1975, between the Unión Obrera Metalúrgica de la República Argentina (UOM) and the employer chambers of the sector: the Federación Argentina de la Industria Metalúrgica, the Federación Argentina de Industrias Metalúrgicas Livianas y Afines, and the Federación Argentina de la Industria Metalúrgica del Interior. Article 3 makes it apply throughout the entire national territory, and Article 4 covers all personnel across the different metalworking branches, whether or not the employer belongs to the signatory chambers: foundry, forging, stamping, rolling, welding, and machining of metal parts; auto-repair shops; manufacturing of structures, boilers, tanks, auto parts, appliances, and machine tools, among many other listed activities. Article 5 excludes only hierarchical staff: managers, department heads, general foremen, and officers with authority to bind the employer.

Article 6 sets the blue-collar categories, from highest to lowest skill: oficial múltiple (masters more than one trade in the specialty), oficial (executes any job in the specialty with precision, from drawings or instructions), medio oficial (finished the apprenticeship but doesn't yet have an oficial's speed and precision), operario especializado múltiple, operario especializado, operario calificado, operario (simple manual tasks, loading and unloading), and peón (cleaning, loading, and stacking only). Promotion isn't left to the employer's discretion: Article 10 lets you sit the proficiency exam to move up in category in April and October each year, and Article 18 provides that once assigned, the oficial or oficial múltiple category cannot be downgraded, even if your tasks or section within the plant change.

On top of each category's base pay, the agreement adds premiums that almost never show up in full on the paystub:

• Seniority (Art. 27): 1% of your category's base hourly wage (if paid by the hour) or base monthly salary (if paid monthly), for every year of service, paid independently of any higher wages you may earn. If your anniversary falls between the 1st and the 15th of the month, the increase starts that same month; between the 16th and the 31st, it starts the following month.
• Unhealthy tasks (Art. 33): every hour worked in tasks or sections declared unhealthy counts as one hour and twenty minutes for pay purposes, and the workday shrinks to 6 hours a day or 36 a week when those tasks take up most of your shift. The reduction also covers monthly-paid workers and staff, without cutting their salary. Article 34 adds a liter of milk per day in unhealthy sections.
• Hazardous tasks (Art. 65): a 20% premium on your base wage while the task lasts: work at heights above 8 meters or depths below 4 meters, bending and roughing in rolling mills, extracting ingots with hand hooks, hand-pouring molten metal, and coupling moving railcars.
• High-heat work (Art. 66): another 20% on the base wage for furnace loaders, tap-hole operators, boiler caulkers, and their assistants.
• Work clothing (Art. 37) and tools (Art. 38): two sets of work clothes per year, delivered against a signed receipt, replaced by the employer if wear is premature due to the job; measuring instruments and tools are also supplied and replaced by the employer for normal wear.
• Filling in for a higher category (Art. 12): if you temporarily cover the post of an oficial or a co-worker in a higher category, you're paid the wage difference for as long as the substitution lasts. If you accumulate 460 hours (345 in unhealthy tasks) doing that work, you lock in the right to that higher wage even after returning to your original post.
• Metalworker's Day (Art. 41): September 7 is a non-working day; if production needs require you to work that day, you're paid both the normal shift and an extra full day's wage.

2. Work hours, overtime, and unhealthy conditions

Article 19 requires the workday to be observed in full, respecting the start and end times set by each company. When you work continuous daytime shifts of 8 hours or more, or nighttime shifts of 7 hours or more (or Saturdays with 7 continuous hours), Article 20 gives you a 30-minute paid break that can't be deducted from your pay or tacked onto your shift. In split (discontinuous) schedules, Article 21 sets a break of between 2 and 3 hours between the two segments.

Overtime is governed by Article 23: 50% extra on business days and 100% on Saturdays from 1:00 p.m., Sundays, and mandatory holidays. The article itself clarifies something key for a claim: the premium must be paid "even when no administrative authorization was obtained." The fact that the employer never filed the union authorization for overtime isn't an excuse to underpay it or skip it.

Unhealthy conditions have their own regime under Article 33: if the labor authority declared your task or section unhealthy, every hour worked counts as one hour and twenty minutes for pay purposes, and the legal workday drops to 6 hours a day or 36 a week. Pay can't be calculated as if it were a plain 6-hour shift — you take the hourly wage set by the agreement and apply the 1-hour-20-minute coefficient to every hour actually worked.

3. The claims we see most in the metalworking industry

Real category versus paystub category. The most common claim: you perform oficial-level work (reading drawings, precision, autonomy) but you're listed and paid as medio oficial or operario especializado. With Art. 6 defining each category by the tasks actually performed, and Art. 18 protecting your category once assigned, the retroactive wage difference for the last two years is claimable with witnesses and a concrete description of your tasks.

Substitutions that drag on unpaid. You cover an oficial's absence for months, but the company never acknowledges the Art. 12 difference. If you add up the substitution hours (with production records, work orders, or witnesses) and cross 460 hours, the claim isn't just for the wage gap during that period — it's for locking in the higher category itself.

Saturday paid as if it were a Monday. Many payrolls bill Saturday-afternoon hours at 50%, when Art. 23 requires 100% from 1:00 p.m. onward. In plants with rotating shifts, that difference adds up fast.

Unhealthy conditions ignored. You're exposed to fumes, noise, or heat in sections that were never formally surveyed, and the company doesn't cut your shift to 6 hours, doesn't pay the 1-hour-20 coefficient, and doesn't give you the daily liter of milk under Art. 34. The lack of a formal survey by the labor authority doesn't erase the unhealthy conditions in fact — they're proven with expert evidence at trial.

The premium that disappears before dismissal. You were earning the 20% for hazardous or high-heat work, and months before firing you, the company moves you to a different section so the severance is calculated without that item. Under Article 245 of the LCT as amended by Article 51 of Law 27,802 (Official Gazette, March 6, 2026), the severance base is the best regular, ordinary monthly pay of the last year, and a pay item is considered ordinary/habitual when it was earned for at least six months in the last calendar year. The exact date of the task change decides whether that 20% enters your severance calculation.

Clothing and tools not provided. Working without the gear Art. 30 and Art. 37 put on the employer isn't just a breach of contract — it's the gateway to a workplace accident covered by Law 24,557, whose disability rating uses the schedule in Decree 659/96, replaced by Decree 549/2025.

4. Step by step

Gather your documents. Pay stubs from the last twenty-four months, receipts for delivered clothing and tools, work orders or production records showing your real tasks, and any record of substitutions in a higher category.

Reconstruct your category and hours. Write down precisely what task you perform (and since when), your overtime each week, and whether you work in a section exposed to heat, fumes, or noise. Compare that against what each paystub actually paid.

Send a formal demand. The labor telegram is free for employees under Law 23,789. Spell out your real category, the amounts owed, and the period, with a reasonable deadline to respond.

SECLO. In Buenos Aires City, the mandatory labor conciliation under Law 24,635 comes before any lawsuit: it's free, a conciliator is assigned by lottery, and filing suspends the statute of limitations for six months.

Lawsuit. Filed before the National Labor Courts. Claims are adjusted under the criterion of Article 276 of the LCT as set by Article 54 of Law 27,802: the change in the Consumer Price Index plus 3% annually. Seniority is computed by year or fraction greater than three months.

5. Mistakes that cost you money

Not requesting the proficiency exam in writing. If you believe you're due a higher category, submit your request in April or October (Art. 10) and keep a copy — it's proof you claimed the promotion on time.

Not counting substitution hours. No one writes down when they started covering a co-worker's post. Without that record, you lose track of the 460 hours that lock in the higher category under Art. 12.

Accepting a section change without documenting it. If you're pulled off hazardous or high-heat work shortly before dismissal, that record — or those witnesses — are worth months of severance pay.

Returning work clothing without a receipt. The agreement allows the employer to deduct the cost if you don't return it — always do so against a written receipt, and challenge any improper deductions.

Letting deadlines run out. Labor claims expire after two years (Art. 256 LCT): every month that passes drops the oldest month from your overtime and wage-difference claim.

6. Frequently asked questions about metallurgical work