BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s authorities Tuesday printed the contents of a proposed referendum on reform of the nation’s labor laws, that seeks to offer workers better entry to well being advantages and time beyond regulation pay. If authorized, nonetheless, it may make it more durable to create jobs in Latin America’s fourth largest economic system.
The Ministry of the Inside printed 12 questions that it plans to incorporate in a nationwide referendum, recognized in Colombia as a well-liked session. A date hasn’t been set for the referendum, which nonetheless requires approval from Colombia’s Senate.
The questions ask voters in the event that they agree or disagree with reforms to Colombia’s labor legal guidelines, together with requiring meals supply platforms to supply medical health insurance for freelancers and requiring firms to pay their workers double their each day fee after they work on Sundays.
One other query asks voters if “daytime work ought to go from 6 a.m. to six p.m.” implying that workers working exterior these hours ought to be paid further.
The federal government has beforehand proposed that firms pay workers a 35% bonus for any time labored exterior common daytime hours.
Enterprise teams in Colombia oppose the reforms, arguing they’ll make it more durable for small and medium enterprises to supply correct labor contracts to their employees, whereas encouraging them to rent individuals informally, paying them in money. Commerce teams have additionally argued that the federal government’s reforms do little to create new jobs.
“The federal government’s reforms don’t acknowledge the truth of 16 million casual laborers and unemployed individuals in Colombia,” Jaime Alberto Cabal, the president of Colombia’s Nationwide Affiliation of Retailers mentioned in a video printed on X.
The referendum may also ask voters if a particular fund ought to be created to supply pensions to rural employees, and if firms ought to be obliged to rent “not less than two individuals with disabilities for each 100 employees.”
In a speech on Monday, President Gustavo Petro mentioned he’ll lead a march to Colombia’s Congress on Might 1 to stress legislators into giving the referendum a inexperienced mild.
“It’s time for the individuals to make their very own choices” Petro mentioned Monday in a nationally televised speech, the place he argued that Colombia’s Congress has been making an attempt to “deny the individuals” the appropriate to determine their future.
The federal government’s push for a referendum comes as Colombia’s president fails to get the nation’s Senate to move laws on labor legal guidelines and well being care, that are central to his financial agenda.
Petro is now making an attempt to get round this deadlock by getting a few of his reforms handed by means of a referendum, a transfer that no Colombian authorities has tried earlier than.
Political analysts say will probably be robust for the president to get sufficient voters to assist his proposals, even when they sound enticing for employees looking for extra rights.
Below Colombian regulation, not less than one third of the nation’s eligible voters should take part in standard consultations for his or her outcomes to hold any authorized weight. Which means the proposed referendum would wish roughly 13 million votes for its outcomes to be carried out.
Petro received the 2022 presidential election with 11 million votes.
“There is perhaps institutional actors, akin to labor unions, who’re very on this referendum” mentioned Yan Basset a political analyst at Bogota’s Rosario College. “However their capability to mobilize voters is proscribed.”
Basset mentioned the referendum offers Petro a cause to mobilize his occasion’s bases, forward of subsequent yr’s presidential election, giving the president’s occasion considerably of an electoral benefit.
But when the referendum doesn’t move, it may additionally damage the president, Basset mentioned, as a result of “the concept that he’s representing the pursuits of the individuals” would lose credibility.
