Low blow. In just one week, the Executive Power has adopted questionable legal decisions via supreme decrees or in defense of them. First, last week, he decreed the intervention of the Teacher Spill, despite the fact that this is a private pension institution for teachers; on Monday, threatened the magistrates of the Judicial Power with taking legal action if precautionary or other similar measures are issued against Supreme Decree (DS) 001-2022-TR, which limits labor outsourcing; and now, it intends to approve a draft decree that would massify the strikes.
An example of a blow to private activity in this latest regulatory proposal is that, unlike the current framework, any request for a strike that is sent to the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (MTPE) could be carried out without the need for collective bargaining between the union and the employer and, moreover, could be approved by default in three days if the ministry does not issue a response.
Such measures, threats and proposals have raised concern among analysts and the private sector, since they are framed in a context where the quality of employment in the country has not yet managed to return to pre-pandemic levels. And to this is added the lack of certainty at the business level regarding the future that awaits Peruvian economic activity in a year of galloping inflation and fears of recession in Europe and the US, which also pose another risk for Peru.
Unions close ranks
In the midst of this uncertainty, nine business associations expressed their concern about the recent proposals and announcements regarding the labor framework that came from the Ministry of Labor. They did so through a letter sent to the head of the sector, Juan Ramón Lira Loayza.
“Both facts cause us deep concern. Mainly because they question the statements we received from you and your predecessor in office, in the sense that your efforts had a vocation for social dialogue, as the only way to achieve a stable and functional labor relations system”, reads the document signed by associations such as the National Confederation of Private Business Institutions (Confiep), the Association of Exporters (Adex), the National Society of Industries (SNI), among others.
The representatives of the private sector highlighted the importance of the MTPE authorities respecting the institutional framework and complying with maintaining the due debate of initiatives in the National Labor Council (CNT). The clear and harsh rejection of the threats from the ministry of Juan Lira to the PJ, made known by Peru21, were also forceful.
“Regarding the statement (from the MTPE), we deplore that an official body of the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion uses aggressive and confrontational language towards citizens who limit themselves to asserting what they consider their rights, and authorities who act in the strict exercise of their functions and enjoy autonomy by constitutional mandate,” they asserted.
Labor lawyer Germán Lora explained that the decree that limits outsourcing is unconstitutional and that this current supreme decree proposal would facilitate strikes and strengthen unions.
“This is clearly arming the union so it can exert more force on employers. And it is a line of the Government, a Government where the president is a former trade unionist who tries to generate regulations that make these organizations have greater power, ”he asserted.
In that sense, he stressed that sometimes unions misguide their actions. “And if they have weapons like these, added to the fact that the Labor administrative authority is always going to respond in their favor, we have a world in which the employer has no rights regarding collective issues and that is incorrect. We have to look for balanced relationships”, warned Lora.
Data
-Other unions that signed the letter to Minister Lira were the Lima Chamber of Commerce, the Peruvian Chamber of Construction, ComexPerú, the National Mining, Oil and Energy Society, and the National Fisheries Society.
