The current president of the Autonomous Central of Workers of Panama (CGTP), Nelva Reyes, denounced this Tuesday afternoon, in the evening news Panama Hoy, that there are business owners who have been hiring new personnel paying them a salary below the salary minimum and without paying their due benefits, such as social security and educational insurance.
“There are colleagues who were working or who work in these companies and have gone personally and have not been reinstated, they continue with the suspended contracts,” he said.
The union leader makes a call to the Ministry of Labor and Labor Development (Mitradel), since these workers have a year and eight months with suspended contracts without receiving an economic income. “There are many of those workers who when they talk about reinstatement, before this happens, they have eliminated the bonus, so they are left without any hope so that they can bring a livelihood to their homes,” he said.
Reyes also made reference to Law 201 of February 25, 2021, which establishes temporary measures to preserve unemployment and in force since February 26, 2021, noting that companies in the tertiary sector of the economy, including activities with 10 or fewer workers and companies in the tourism sector will gradually reintegrate their workers month by month according to the conditions of each company, but emphasizes that “extensions of the suspension of contracts may not exceed eight months”, a period that expired Sunday October 31st.
“We have denounced that this law is totally leonine to workers because it was going to keep workers with suspended contracts for a longer time, with the little game that month after month they would be reinstated. That law, the only thing it had was that it guaranteed the mothers who did not pay the maternity allowance, the payment of this; It was the only candy that they put in that law to appease the rest of the 30 articles that this law has, ”he argued.
He pointed out that with the modification of the law and with the Covid-19 pandemic, “the business sector has benefited and here those who have been paying for the broken dishes or carrying the crisis have been the workers and we continue to pay it because right now there are more than 73 thousand workers who have not been reintegrated ”.
He stressed that in many businesses foreign personnel have been hired because they cannot claim their rights, however, if one of them is legal in the country, they have the same rights as nationals.
At the same time, he maintained that there are workers who are doing the work of three or four people at the same time, as they are still suspended from their work.
“We have been sending Mitradel this information, in some cases they have gone and made the inspections, but all the companies have to be reviewed and they should have more inspectors who know the rules,” concluded Nelva Reyes.
