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 -Published: Friday, January 17, 2020 Strike
regulation law passed
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The Legislative Assembly approved with 35 positive votes and 13 negative votes, bill No. 21.049, entitled Law to provide legal security on the strike and its procedures. Following the regulations of Congress, the text of the new law must be sent to the President's Office to be signed. Then, it will be sent for publication to the government official newspaper La Gaceta. It is estimated that in less than a month, the bill will become law, after being published. The new law would regulate and classify essential public services, and strikes would be prohibited in these areas. The prohibitions generally apply to public jobs affecting life, health and safety of people, such as hospitalization, home care, outpatient consultation, medical exams, laboratory tests, pharmacy, laundry, surgeries and emergencies. Also included are public police, air and immigration workers, those in rail transport, maritime loading and unloading at docks, workers providing medications, those operating medical equipment, those providing energy and those involved in other forms of transportation. The public education sector also is part of these critical services, and the new law would establish that during a strike, enough employees need to continue working at the public schools, high schools and universities, among others. With the new law, the maximum period allowed for a public employee strike is 10 days. After that workers must return to their jobs. One of the deputies who voted in favor of the bill was Yorleny León, who said that the country needs to have a law to regulates strikes and protect the rights of people who are affected by strikes. One of the deputies who voted against the bill, was José María Villalta, who said that the law was born from revenge to punish public workers who opposed new taxes in 2018. In 2019 the members of the National Association of Costa Rican Teachers Union, known as ANDE, the high school teachers union, in agreement with the National Association of Public and Private Employees Union, known as ANEP, the union of most of the employees at most of the public institutions, went on strike protesting the bill. According to the Ministry of Public Education, as a result of union strikes during 2018 and 2019, students at public elementary schools and high schools have lost 100 days of lessons. "Union strikes are generating inequality among students in public versus private schools because the students of private schools have not lost lessons and not suffered from the stress caused by the teacher's strike," said the ministry in its statement. ------------------------ Are you for or against the strike regulation law? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com |
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