The President of the “Central de Trabajadores Alianza Sindical Independiente” (ASI) Venezuela, Leida Marcela León, stated this Wednesday, May 10th, that after the increase in bonuses that have no salary incidence at all as decreed on May 1st by Nicolás Maduro, can only be cover around 15% of the food basket.
Correspondent lapatilla.com
During a press conference in Carabobo State, Ms. León described the return to the non-salary bonus policy as a step back.
In addition, she repudiated that after 10 days of the economic announcements, neither a decree nor a gazette has yet been published in relation to each of these points.
She explained that the increase in the “cesta-ticket” (food bonus) to $40 and the adjustment of the economic war bond to $30 translates into a “bonified increase” (not real salary) in the income of active workers of only $24.75; for private sector workers, $31.19; for retired public sector workers, $18; and pensioners only 5.3 U.S. dollars.
“With these 75 ‘bonified’ dollars, we will only be able to purchase 15% of the products in the food basket, we would still have a deficit of 85%. In April we could eat with our salary for one day, today with these increases we can only eat for three to four days,” said León.
According to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), the Family Food Basket for the month of March 2023 amounted to 510.88 dollars, which is the equivalent of 12,715.72 bolivars.
On the other hand, she stated that the “Clap bag”, subsidies and job training are social investments of the State and should not be considered as part of the salary.
“To say that the income derived from the bonuses is the same as salary is false. To say that the “cesta-ticket” (food bonus) is an emergency income is false. Most of the collective contracts establish that the cesta-ticket is part of the integral salary,” she emphasized.
León referred to Maduro’s announcement about leveraging the savings bank system. She affirmed that with the minimum wage of 130 bolivars, or approximately 5 dollars, the workers have no capacity to save or leverage anything.
Likewise, she rejected the idea of creating a high-level commission to study and activate the new collective agreements.
The President of the Central de Trabajadores ASI Venezuela explained that this measure translates into a violation of trade union freedom, because it is in the workers’ assemblies where the projects of collective agreements are to be carried out and agreed.
León assured that they will remain at the dialogue table and protesting in the streets until their labor rights are restored.
She announced that they will soon take legal action against the violation of the Venezuelan labor law system.