He business sector and the union continue to clash over the issue of layoff in the reform of Labor Code. Separately, both parties knocked on the doors of the president of the Senate, Ricardo de los Santos, to whom they sent letters. In these, the former propose changes to the conditions under which this right is paid after an eviction and the latter oppose changing them.
Through a letter, the president of the National Council of Private Enterprise, Celso Juan Marranziniand the president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Dominican Republic, Laura Pena Izquierdoinsisted that it is “imminent” to hold a objective discussionunbiased, founded and technical around the current model of layoff.
Employers remain firm in defending them proposals for change to the layoff presented during the Tripartite Dialogue and that unleashed a controversy with the union class, among them considering an average of accrued salaries, instead of the last year of the worker’s salary to calculate that right.
Also, consider other alternatives to layoffsuch as insurance or (unemployment) fund and reduce contributions (or a percentage) of what the employer must make by law to the worker’s individual capitalization account.
From the work partthe president of the National Council of Trade Union Unity (CNUS), Rafael (Pepe) Abreu, declared in his letter that the delay in the approval of the text generates uncertainty among the workersespecially because, as he stated, some business sectors maintain their interest in modifying or eliminating the layoffone of the most sensitive rights of the current Labor Code.
He reiterated that the CNUS does not accept no modification to the layoff“neither under the guise of paying it in installments, as the employers have proposed, nor by creating a six-month trial contract,” which he considered an attempt to make working conditions precarious.
Back to 1992
“If you in the Senate regret having approved the aforementioned reform in two consecutive readings, simply take a step back, withdraw it, because we are willing to continue dealing with the 1992 Code. After all, that Code is the one that has maintained the macroeconomic stability and politics and the social peace of which we pride ourselves so much,” said Abreu.
Another of the employers’ proposals is to establish a limit of 10 minimum salaries in the sector to determine the base salary for calculating severance pay, taking into account that only 0.7% of the total workers earn more than 250,000 pesos and to extend the trial period for new workers.
