The Senate approves the government’s labor reform with all the demands of President Petro

The Senate of the Republic has approved on Tuesday night the labor reform proposed by the Government with all the demands made by President Gustavo Petro. With this decision, the first left -wing president in Colombia’s recent history achieves an unexpected legislative victory that returns oxygen in the midst of a political chaos that exacerbated the attack on the presidential candidate opponent Miguel Uribe Turbay. To become law, the reform that seeks to improve working conditions for more than 10 million formal workers only lacks conciliation between the texts that were approved in the Chamber and in the Senate. It has for this the remainder of the week because this Friday, June 20, the sessions of the Congress culminate.

During the last day of discussion in the Senate plenary, the government imposed on the opposition, with the support of some senators of the independent benches, and triumphed in all important votes. The first great victory held by the Historical Pact, Government Party, and its allies of the Green, Liberal, and the U parties, plus some senators of the opponents radical and conservative change, was the return of the labor nature to the contract that students have in technical training of the state of the National Learning Service (SENA). Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who had a determining role to get the positive votes that were needed. At the beginning of the afternoon, he celebrated that first achievement. “Historical news. The Plenary of the Senate has approved in plenary article 23 of our labor reform: the apprentices of the SENA will have an employment contract. A right that was removed in 2003 and that we now recover it. We are fulfilling the youth of Colombia!”, Wrote the former U senator of the U in X. This decision is a strong defeat for the large companies, which were opposed to that contract.

A couple of hours later, the Government won again in one of the most important votes for the president, the elimination of articles 37 and 38, which according to the trade union movement encouraged hiring and price for hours and encouraged labor precariousness. In a first vote of that matter, the official senators and those of opposition were tied in 47 votes. Just a few minutes later, in a new vote, the government achieved four definitive support to archive those articles. Petro celebrated that advance in his X account: “The work for hours completely destroys the entire substantive code of labor. It takes workers to maximum labor exploitation (…) If a three -month contract is bad, imagine one for hours. Until now it has favorably advanced labor progressivism in the Senate.”

The triumphs of the government continued with the application of the increase in the day considered no night, and which, therefore, implies a bonus, to all companies. The opposition wanted to exclude micro and small companies. In the end, the text that came out of the plenary of the House of Representatives was approved, which establishes that night surcharges will begin from 7 at night. Today they begin at 9. The payment of Sunday and holiday also increased from 75% to 100% as President Petro wanted. The last success of the government was the elimination of the possibility of concentrating the four -day weekly day, instead of the current five, a proposal that the opposition parties, the conservative and the democratic center had led.

Apart from the pending conciliation, now the president must decide if he fulfills his promise that if the reform was approved as he wanted to withdraw the controversial decree of the popular consultation.