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Non-Professional Government Workers Protest
For Fair Salary
A large group of "non-professional"
government workers descended on downtown San
Jose yesterday, gathering in front of the
ministerio de Hacienda (Revenue ministry)
building, as part of a one day strike,
asking for a resumption of dialogue to
negotiate a fair and just salary.
The group has called for the application of
a study by the Servicio Civil (Civil Service
) last year, which shows the lag which the
wages of non-professional workers, including
clerks, secretaries, drivers, maintenance
managers, technicians, cooks, servants
security and surveillance, among others.
The estimate that some 38.000
non-professional government workers are
receiving the lower wages.
Xiomara Rojas, representing the Sindicato
Independiente de Trabajadores Estatales
Costarricenses, that is important to sit
down at the negotiations table again, in the
same way the union negotiated fair wages for
the government's professional workers.
Talks between the government and the union
broke down in 2008 when, according to Rojas,
the government was handed the report and
said it did not have the financial resources
to comply.
The union insists that the government has
the money to comply with the wage parity and
that is needed is the political will power
to adjust the salaries of the
non-professional workers.
Albino Vargas, head of the powerful
Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y
Privados (ANEP), said that the union has
figures from the Contraloría General de la
República (Comptroller's office) and the
Ministerio de Hacienda and accepted by the
ministerio de la Presidencia, which shows
there is money available to pay the workers
their fair wage.
For Vargas, this is a time when the
government should be backing the workers who
are facing tough economic times.
Vargas added that if the government will sit
down, they will insist on officials of the
Presidencia and Hacienda to sit in, failing
which, there will be more and larger scale
protests that will affect the entire
country.
In yesterday's workers from the Ministerio
de Obras Públicas y Transportes, Cen-Cinai,
Consejo Nacional de Producción e Instituto
Costarricense de Acueductos y
Alcantarillados (AyA), teachers and many
others.
The government, as in past demonstrations,
said that it would be docking the salary of
those workers who did not show up for work
and took part in the protest. |
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