“Outrageous”: nurses received $15 bonuses

The executive secretary of the Federation of Health Workers (Fetrasalud), Pablo Zambrano, described the amounts of bonuses that the workers of the sector received.

Zambrano indicated that The nurses received amounts equivalent to $15.66 at the official rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and the cleaning workers about $9.44.

These figures, in Zambrano’s opinion, make it impossible to cover basic expenses, especially for the Christmas season. «We have not received the corresponding year-end bonus for three or four years, which demonstrates the abandonment of the workers by the government«he asserted.

The Fetrasalud spokesperson blamed the Minister of Planning, Ricardo Menéndez, and the budgetary policies he designed, ensuring that they fuel the economic crisis that the country’s employees and technicians must face with stagnant salaries.

“Their calculations are not to improve us, but to deteriorate us. They do not allow us to move towards a salary that covers our basic needs,” he stressed.

He pointed out that workers in the sector are dissatisfied with the policies applied by the National Budget Office (Onapre), alleging that it does not have the capacity to adjust salaries to face inflation.

The union leader called on Nicolás Maduro, questioning the legality of the current minimum wage in Venezuela, which has remained frozen at three dollars for more than two years, citing article 91 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which establishes that Every worker has the right to a living wage. «Why have they left us out of the Constitution? Why do the government and business owners ignore what our Labor Law stipulates?

Demand decent and adequate wages

The executive secretary of Fetrasalud also criticized the meetings that the government holds with union leaders who, according to him, “are related to the ruling party,” ensuring that these meetings do not reflect the reality that workers live.

“It’s as if they were meeting with themselves,” he lamented, and called for a broad negotiating table that includes critical voices and focuses on multiplying the economic clauses of the collective contract, as well as guaranteeing fair social benefits.

Zambrano demanded that the government and the private sector fulfill their responsibility to pay decent and adequate wages. “People go to work to receive a decent wage, not one that is unworthy.”