In the Ministry of Health there are more than 10 thousand doctors who work in different public care services, a guild that also requires being taken into account in the discussion of the salary increase, because The unions that have taken to the streets to claim said increase do not represent them.
The mobilizations registered in the last 15 days have as a trigger in article 140 of Decree 36-2024, Law of the General Budget of Income and Expenditures of the State for Fiscal Year 2025.
This article establishes that the Ministry of Health must finance this year a salary increase and an economic incentive, the reclassification of the personnel, the continuation of the transfer of temporary contractors to permanent line, as well as the increase in the amount of the study scholarships for the Epesists of the Medicine career. To do this, the portfolio must readjust its budget.
Abner Vásquez, doctor, lawyer and general secretary of the union of university professionals of the related and collateral health sciences, mentions that, as a group, It was they who brought to the Congress of the Republic the proposal of article 140and that this was a struggle of several years.
“We are demanding it, because we proposed this article 140. We started with all the deputies, but who brought the article was the deputy Karla Cardona, and that is where the law is born,” says the professional. This fuand approved last November as an amendment to Decree 36-2024. It refers to the deputy of the National Unit of Hope (UNE), current secretary of the Health Commission of the Congress.
On the other hand, he points out that the National Union of Health Workers of Guatemala (SNTSG), with which the Ministry of Health agreed to negotiate compliance with the article, does not represent the profession of professionals.
“How is Luis Alpírez – SNTSG General Secretary – can negotiate, if he is not the highest organ? The maximum organ is the assembly, and he had to ask if they authorized him to sign on behalf of the professionals, but there was never such an assembly,” says Vásquez, so he cannot negotiate in their name.
The doctor and lawyer says have support in article 51, literal c), of the Labor Code, which establishes that a company or production center that uses workers from different professions or trades must negotiate the collective pact with the set of unions that represent each one, if they agree. Otherwise, each union can “demand that a collective pact be negotiated with it, to determine the conditions related to said profession or trade.”
Vásquez says that, as a union organization, They represent more than 10,700 affiliates, So they are the majority union of professionals and university technicians working for the Ministry of Health.
He adds that Alpírez represents the majority union of the operational personnel and that they do not oppose that negotiating in favor of said group; However, they do not authorize him to propose actions that do not favor professionals.
The above is due to the fact that, according to Vásquez, for negotiations between the SNTSG and the health authorities in 2022, an increase of Q300 per month for professionals was agreed, while the other workers received Q1 thousand 300. From that date, Each professional has stopped receiving Q39 thousand.
“We have to sit. We understand that the problem can be fixed if we form a collective pact and work hand in hand,” he adds.
It should be remembered that in 2018 doctors and health professionals They took to the streets to claim a salary dignification, which led to suspension of elective surgeries and limited attention in external consultations that lasted several days.
Demands
Professionals demand a salary improvement, whose quantity still defines, but reChazan the increase of Q1 thousand proposed by the Ministry of Health.
In addition, they demand the reallocation of positions, since there are personnel who occupy places as paramedic but have academic graduate credits. To this group they must ascend and continue doing so according to a specialization, in order to “maintain balance” in the scale administrative career.
On the other hand, there are about 7 thousand professionals – among related doctors and professionals, social workers, psychologists, pharmaceutical chemists, respiratory therapists, university technicians in nursing, among others – who since 2018 are waiting for the transfer to a 011 square, which would guarantee them access to law benefits, such as Bono 14, Aguinaldo, Vacation and Social Security.
“What do we expect? Sitting at the table, but in conditions without coercion, saying: Well, gentlemen, we will have a worthy salary increase for all,” he says, and adds that they have not taken to the streets because they are respectful of the law.
“We are asking them to feel, but we are also demanding the literal compliance with the law. The law is not negotiated, it is invoked. And if it says that everyone must go to line 011, then, incorporate them,” adds the interviewee.
Accompaniment
The requirement of a salary increase for professionals has the support of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Guatemala (Colmedegua).
“As a school, what we are doing is complying with our statutes, in which we are asked to ensure the interests of the members working within the Ministry of Health, and who are accompanying from our trade union defense commission,” says the doctor José Ernesto Galdámez Samayoa, member of Colmedgua.
Luis Linares, of the Association of Research and Social Studies (thus), points out that the school constitutes “a pressure group” and that doctors seek in this support, since they do not feel represented by the union groups that have taken to the streets to ask for the increase.
He adds that the salary improvements agreed in other institutions, such as the National Civil Police, cause this escalation of demands for better working conditions.
On the other hand, the increase and other points mentioned in article 140 of Decree 36-2024 are not raised as a negotiation opportunity, but as a mandate, what Leave the government in the obligation to grant them.
The challenge for the Executive is to opt for a salary policy of the public sector, since there are disproportionate salaries. There must also be coherence with the speech of austerity in spending, mainly in high bureaucracy, adds Linares.