The minimum wage negotiations in Nicaragua that will begin the second half of January will be discussed for the third consecutive year between Sandinista or related sectors, with the expectation as to whether the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep will return to the negotiating table, which it abandoned in 2019.
At the negotiating table, a representative of the business sector, from the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), in addition to a representative of the Nicaraguan Commission of Small and Medium Enterprises, (Conimipyme), as well as the unions and the government, whose representation is in charge of the Ministry of Labor.
By 2022 the negotiation scenario will change. On October 21, 2021, the Daniel Ortega regime incarcerated Michael Healy, president of Cosep and his vice president, Álvaro Vargas. On December 13, 2021, the Interior Ministry ordered the closure of Conimipyme, alleging that this organization violated the Law against Money Laundering. The president of the latter, Leonardo Torres, close to Ortega, was the one who negotiated the minimum wage for the small and medium-sized business sector.
Aprodesni takes the place of Conimipyme
Since 2019, the Association for the Promotion of Development and Sustainability of Nicaragua (Aprodesni), participated together with Conimipyme in the negotiating table of the minimum wage and now it will correspond, as it was known, to represent the entire sector of small and medium-sized companies of the country.
Aprodesni was created by businessmen who argued that they sought to fill the void of Cosep, seeking to reactivate the “consensus” model with the dictatorship, after the breakdown of the alliance with the regime after the bloody repression of the protests in April 2018.
In June 2019, Aprodesni was granted to represent the Nicaraguan private sector in Geneva, Switzerland, for the bicentennial of the International Labor Organization. In February 2021, Zacarías Corea, president of Aprodesni, alleged that they began to take Cosep’s place because “they lost the compass”, by not dedicating themselves exclusively to business activity, but instead became involved in “political affairs.”
And it is that according to the discourse of Ortega, Cosep was jointly responsible for the civic demonstrations of 2018, which from the official perspective were about an attempted coup against Daniel Ortega, who at that time had been in power for 11 years.
Korea told Confidencial that they are pushing for this year’s negotiation to be presented by COSEP, which has three years to leave the minimum wage table. He added that to date there is no glimpse of any other organization representing the small and medium-sized business sector, replacing Conimipyme, so Aprodesni will be the highest representative of MSMEs.
“We as Aprodesni have an area that serves this sector, of this magnitude of companies (MSMEs). We are going to see which of them is consulted so that they can give their opinion and that through us we can give that contribution to the tripartite commission. We are already working on the behavior of the basic basket and the revision of the final numbers of economic growth, ”said Korea.
The president of Aprodesni did not say how many companies they represent, although his organization is smaller than Conimipyme. He assures that in 2021 his minimum wage proposal was the one that came closest to the final percentage approved at the negotiating table, which was 3% for all productive sectors, except the small and medium tourist and artisan industries, whose increase was 1%.
“We do not have small and medium-sized companies as Conimipyme had. We have small companies that are inside our chambers. In total, we here (Aprodesni) are on top of 360 companies, ”Korea explained.
Expectation on whether Cosep will participate in negotiations
In 2019, the President José Adán Aguerri, Today a political prisoner of the Ortega regime, he alleged that there were no conditions to sit down to negotiate and since then, for the next three years, large companies had no representation at the minimum wage negotiating table.
But this 2022, the direction of Cosep is in charge of César Zamora, who assumed the presidency of the business union after Healy’s arrest in 2021. Zamora is seen as a businessman ally of the Orteg regimeto and in previous years he was a staunch defender of the economic and political model of consensus with the dictatorship. Although there is no further information on whether Cosep under the leadership of César Zamora will sit down to negotiate the minimum wage, it is expected that this year this sector will return to the negotiating table.
“So that we as a country can grow and have viability as we have been walking, despite the things that have happened, the way to walk is to integrate ourselves within a logic of coexistence, of national harmony,” said Korea.
In the same vein, the president of Conimipyme, Leonardo Torres, who disappeared from the public stage since the closure of his businessmen’s union was announced, as well as his Uhispam university.
Who has won here? The country has won, Nicaragua has won, we have all won. Without the strength of the union sector, workers, and without the strength of the business sector, employers and government facilitation, then logically, it would not be possible to boost the economy of this country, “said Torres in February 2021 after agree to the increase for that year.
Pedro Ortega, secretary of labor affairs of the CST-FNT, said that for this year they hope that although Cosep does not participate in the negotiations, the chambers that make up that organization will send delegates to negotiate.
“We hope that the business chambers, as the Minimum Wage Law says, that they accredit before the Ministry of Labor their secretary and alternate to be present in the negotiation of the minimum wage that the Mitrab imagined is going to convene in the first fortnight of this month, ”Ortega pointed out.
CONFIDENTIAL He tried to contact Zamora to find out if they would make it to the negotiating table, but he did not respond to our text messages or phone calls. In the same way, we tried to communicate with different cameras to find out if they would request a representation individually, but they did not answer our messages or calls.
Free zones will also negotiate minimum wage in 2022
Another sector that will have to negotiate a minimum wage this year will be the free zones. Although since the first of January there has already been an increase of 8.25% that will allow the salaries of the 131 146 workers in this sector to go from 6,926.99 córdobas to 7498.46 córdobas per month.
This increase is already in force and now, the maquilas sector and the unions, together with the government, are proposing to establish the new guidelines for the negotiations that will determine the salaries of the coming years.
The objective, says Miguel Ruiz, of the José Benito Escobar CST, is to reach an agreement that allows negotiating the minimum wage for workers for the next five years, something similar to what was done in 2017 and which allowed a sustained increase for workers. workers despite the crisis.
The covid-19 pandemic and the social crisis of 2018 caused the loss of more than 10,000 jobs in the free zone sector and the exit of four of the 230 maquila companies that exist in Nicaragua, but these were recovered at the end of 2021, according to Ruiz.
“There will have to be a new negotiation of a tripartite agreement, we are waiting that, between now and July, which is the date that the agreement expires, then we must sit at the table and negotiate a possible agreement for the next few years, ¿¿ how much will it be? We don’t know yet, ”Ruiz said.
