This Thursday, March 16, the national government filed, with a symbolic event in the Casa de Nariño, the aforementioned labor reform that will change, if it comes out in the Congress of the Republic, the rules for the labor system in Colombia. President Gustavo Petro referred to the initiative and responded to some of the project’s critics.
Some opponents have questioned the initiative, arguing that the labor reform will bankrupt small and medium-sized companies because they will have to pay additional surcharges to their employees, among other questions.
In this regard, the head of state assured that with this reform, led by the Minister of Labor, Gloria Inés Ramírez, he will restore the rights of Colombian workers who, according to Petro, have been violated for several decades in the country.
However, he avoided commenting on the possible negative incidents that the opposition has denounced and that, according to him, have been reported by the media.
“There has been a lot of dialogue about this project, I have heard various criticisms in the press that if the cost of labor rises, that is, the income of families, there would be a loss of employment, from moving from what is called the informal economy to the formal. Forget that analysis that removing those last loopholes of job stability we have obtained from those years until now, approximately 30 years, an adverse result to which critics point out; It has been the reduction of wages and labor instability, it is what has affected the development of capitalism”, the president asserted. And he added:
“The news talks about bank failures, demonstrations so that the pension age is not increased and fights for moments of free space. Things are happening in the world today, people have no way to pay for the increase in interest rates, that screaming system can be overcome if families have a better income, that with policies poverty can be overcome. The time has come when we can discuss the dignity of work, ”he emphasized in his speech.
Likewise, Gustavo Petro recalled the recently released ranking of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where it is evident that Colombia is one of the countries where people get up early. For this reason, the president gave details of how this initiative, which will go through the legislature, will benefit the working class in the country with hours, salaries and surcharges, as it should.
“Colombia is the country where you get up early, statistics indicate that Colombia has the longest, largest working day in the OECD; Colombia has the last place of productivity; In Colombia, people get up early because it is the longest (journey) in the world in general and because the means of transport make that day longer with two hours round trip, like in Bogotá with the sad TransMilenio buses,” added the president. .
In the same way, Petro assured that reducing the working day in other nations “did not bring about the crisis” but, in other societies, what is sought is how to increase productivity. Therefore, he implied that they are some of the axes that the labor reform will bring.
“Labor productivity is discussed, work, the growth of wealth, businessmen and workers can agree on the distribution of production, a capitalism that allowed well-being, the great components of education, health, good live; a worker-business pact that brought a golden moment in the existence of the economy and society. That was destroyed by neoliberalism”, mentioned the president. with Infobae