The announcement of the salary increase of Q1 thousand 200 for health workers took by surprise the unions that have taken to the streets to demand a salary dignification. They point out that this It was a unilateral decision and that dialogue was not respectedso they do not rule out taking actions, such as street mobilizations and the presentation of an amparo action.
“They do not respect the consensus. We are facing a work dictatorship and we will not allow it. They are running over collective bargaining and union freedom, there is no other way to explain it,” said Luis Alpírez, leader of the National Union of Guatemala Health Workers (SNTSG).
He added that the increase announced by the Minister of Health, Joaquín Barnoya, does not fill the expectations of the health and take it as a “setback” to the intention of the workers for being dignified.
“The dialogue fails and we will go to other instances; we are going for an amparo. Going out to the streets is our way of manifesting disagreements,” said Alpírez, on behalf of the group that on March 19 reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Health to demand better salaries, and that on March 31 he managed to recognize him as a majority union to negotiate the benefit for all workers, dialogue they argue.
Dissatisfied
The SNTSG is not the only one that has taken to the streets to demand an increase in the salary of the health. The affiliates of the San Juan de Dios National Union demonstrated for three days in different parts of the country and presented to the Ministry of Health a proposal with amounts and its economic impact on the portfolio budget. The promise they received was that this would be analyzed.
“This announcement does not fill the expectations that the workers had of the increase,” said Carlos Noé Santos Urías, general secretary of the San Juan de Dios Union, since the approach they presented was a salary improvement of Q2 thousand 500 for workers in dependency relationship, and two bonds of Q3 thousand 500 for those hired in the lines 029 and in subgroup 18.
He pointed out that The authorities promised to present them this week the final proposal of the increase to discuss it And then socialize it, but the announcement that Barnoya gave on May 14 took them by surprise.
“We learned that there was (on Tuesday, May 13) a meeting with President Bernardo Arévalo, who gave the order to be announced unilaterally,” said Santos Urías, a strategy that ensures is the same one that the Ministry of Education used to grant the salary increase to the teachers.
“Here there is no frank or direct or transparent dialogue, as happened with the teaching. It is said that there is negotiation, but in the end it is not a dialogue when unilateral decisions are made,” he said, because Las union organizations were not taken into account.
The next step of the San Juan de Dios National Union will be to meet in assemblies in the departments where they have representation and analyze the increase announced by health. From the agreements that are achieved, the measures that will take as a trade union organization will be known, and it is not ruled out that they make mobilizations in different parts of the country.
The demand of trade unionists is the fulfillment of article 140 of the General Budget Law of Revenue and Expenditures of the State for Fiscal Year 2025, Decree 36-2024, which includes a salary increase and economic incentive for workers; the reclassification of the staff of the Ministry of Health; the continuation of the transfer of temporary contractors to permanent line; and increase in the amount of the studies scholarships for the Epesists of the Medicine career.
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