Employee duties in Puerto Rico: the seven in the statute

The seven basic duties, under Article 2.15

Almost everything written about Puerto Rico labor law explains **rights**. This guide explains the other half, because it is the half quoted in a disciplinary letter and almost nobody has read it before it lands on them.

**Act 4-2017, the «Labor Transformation and Flexibility Act»**, has two twin articles: **2.14** lists the employee's rights and **2.15**, right after it, lists their **basic duties**. These are the seven:

Note the wording of item (g): the employer's rules bind you, but only **those not contrary to law, morals and public order**. That limit is written into the same item that creates the duty.

• **(a)** Fulfill the responsibilities and obligations of your position, in accordance with the employer's rules, **good faith and diligence**.
• **(b)** Observe the **safety and hygiene** measures the employer establishes.
• **(c)** Refrain from **improper, disorderly, criminal or immoral** conduct that could reasonably affect the employer's best interests.
• **(d)** Comply with the employer's **orders and instructions** **in the regular exercise of its managerial powers**.
• **(e)** **Not compete** with the activity of the employer's business, unless the law or an employment agreement provides otherwise.
• **(f)** **Contribute to improving the productivity and competitiveness** of the employer's business.
• **(g)** All duties arising from the employment contract or from the employer's rules and standards **that are not contrary to law, morals and public order**.

The three with teeth

Four of the seven are what anyone would expect. Three are not, and they are precisely the ones quoted when the relationship turns tense.

**Item (c), improper conduct.** What matters is not the list of adjectives but the hook: the conduct must be able to **reasonably affect the employer's best interests**. The statute **does not say** that only what happens on the clock or on the premises counts, and it does not define how far that «reasonably» reaches. Where that boundary falls in a given case is for the courts, and we are not going to invent a rule the statute does not contain.

**Item (e), not competing.** This duty exists **by statute**; you need not have signed a non-compete clause. And the text says it applies «unless otherwise provided **by law or in an employment agreement**»: an agreement can **widen or narrow** it, but with no agreement at all the duty is still there. Before setting up a side business in your field, read that item closely.

**Item (f), productivity.** It is the odd one out, because it does not describe conduct you can avoid but a result you must contribute to. It is the item quoted when the letter is not about a specific incident but about «attitude» or «performance».

The duty to obey comes with a qualifier

Item (d) does not say «comply with the employer's orders», full stop. It says comply with orders and instructions **in the regular exercise of its managerial powers**. That qualifier is not decoration: it is what separates a work instruction from an order that is not one.

And item (g) sets the other limit, the one for written rules: the employer's rules bind you **unless they are contrary to law, morals and public order**. An internal rule cannot give the employer something the law denies it.

How those rules are read when they are ambiguous is answered by **Article 2.12**, and it is worth knowing before arguing over an employee handbook: interpretation is guided by what was agreed, the law, the purpose of the relationship, productivity, the nature of the employment, good faith and commercial usage. But if the employer **reserved discretion** to interpret its own policies, **that reservation must be recognized**, unless the interpretation is **arbitrary or capricious**, or a special statute says otherwise. That «arbitrary or capricious» is the standard you have to be able to sustain if you are going to challenge how a rule was applied.

The article next door: your seven rights

Duties do not live alone. **Article 2.14**, immediately before, puts the employee's rights in writing, and reading them together is what gives the real measure of the relationship:

Two of those rights are the ones most often forgotten in a disciplinary discussion: **respect for your dignity**, which the statute defines as protection against abusive attacks on honor and reputation, and the right to the **individual or collective exercise of the actions** arising from your contract; that is, claiming is not an offense.

• Not to be **discriminated against** in the terms and conditions of employment, nor subjected to **retaliation**, on grounds the law prohibits.
• **Protection against risks** to your health or physical integrity.
• **Protection of your privacy**, subject to the employer's legitimate interests in its business, property and workplace, or to what the law provides.
• **Respect for your dignity**, which includes protection against abusive attacks on your honor and reputation.
• **Timely payment** of the agreed or legally required compensation, per the established periods.
• **Individual or collective exercise** of the actions arising from your employment contract.
• All other rights flowing from the employment contract.

Breaching conduct rules is, on its own, a way employment ends

Here is the consequence, and it sits in an article most people do not connect to duties. **Article 2.16** enumerates the nine ways an employment contract ends, and **dismissal is only one of them**: it appears in item (h).

The next item, **(i)**, says **«breach of conduct rules»**, as a cause of termination **separate from dismissal**. The statute lists them apart.

That is why it is worth knowing Article 2.15 beforehand rather than after: the list of duties is where those «conduct rules» come from when the employer has no handbook, and it is the frame against which the handbook is read when it does.

What protections Act 80 gives you if what happened was a dismissal, and what «just cause» means, is another conversation and we cover it separately. What this guide pins down is the step before: what the list of duties actually is.

The clock runs fast: one year

If a claim of yours comes out of this relationship, one fact decides more cases than any argument. **Article 2.18** provides that actions arising from an employment contract, or from the benefits it generates, **lapse after one year**, counted from the moment the action can be brought.

With two real caveats: **unless a special statute or the contract itself expressly provides otherwise** (several labor claims carry their own deadline in their own statute, and that one governs) and causes of action **arising before** Act 4-2017 took effect keep the deadline of the prior regime.

The practical reading is simple: do not assume you have time. If something happened, the date matters from day one.