The chairman of the Authentic Independent Union (UIA), Luis de Jesús Rivera, on Thursday rejected the decision by the Fiscal Control Board (JCF) and the government to reduce public employees’ vacation leave for the second time in the four-year period.
The union leader reacted indignantly to Special Memorandum 40-2020 from the Office of Administration and Transformation of Human Resources of the Puerto Rico government, which reduces public employees’ vacation leave by half, from 30 to 15 days per year.
“For more than 40 years, civil servants have enjoyed 30 days annual leave as a significant added benefit to partially offset low government wages. This benefit was received from us officials in 2017 with the passage of Law 26, which reduced annual vacation leave to just 15 days. After a long lobbying process for the legislature, the workers managed to pass Law 176-2019, which returned their 30 days annual vacation to government employees, ”said Jesús Rivera in a written statement.
However, he said that in recent days Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the United States District Court in Puerto Rico has approved a request from the Fiscal Control Board to annul said law, which has led the government to approve Special Memorandum 40. -2020 in which vacation leave is reduced for the second time, in less than four years, from 30 to 15 days per year. “The Board indicated that the recovery of vacation and sick days available to government employees makes government employees” less efficient. “These are baseless statements and we would like you to present empirical data on your claim that government employees are less efficient than we do. enjoy more vacation and sick days, “said Luis de Jesús Rivera, chairman of the UIA Executive Committee. The governments of the day in Puerto Rico need to open up and learn from the well-being of other parts of the world. However, what they are doing is close. to the world to be closest to the United States of America, the only developed country that considers paid time off as a luxury and not a right. Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain offer their citizens more than 30 paid days off per years and paid vacation days, when under federal law there are no basic labor rights, such as vacation or sick leave. r is also not a maternity leave under federal law in the United States.
He said there are US companies that offer their employees between 5 and 15 paid days off per year. A study by the US Center for Economic and Policy Research found that about a quarter of private sector workers do not have paid vacation. According to a survey by the Glassdoor.com website, only half of the American employee entitled to paid time off got their fair share. According to the survey, 28% of workers said they were afraid of being left behind at their workplace, while 17% said they were afraid of losing their job, the remaining 19% said they would not take a vacation because they wanted an advantage over competition for a job promotion, all based on a culture of fear in the workplace. However, more and more North American companies, regardless of their jurisdiction, are committed to expanding their benefits to ensure their teams have optimal working conditions.
On the other hand, De Jesús Rivera said, “In Puerto Rico, we cannot allow the Fiscal Control Board and the rulers of this country to impose a culture of fear on us. Employment benefits such as licenses and the Christmas bonus are a form of reward that the employee receives, the purpose of this benefit is clear: improve the employee’s quality of life, increase his job satisfaction so that he has a greater motivation at that time do your work and increase your productivity. One of the great benefits of working conditions is for both parties, for the government and for the employee, such as employee satisfaction, the image of the government, the balance between work and private life and peace between family and work. “
The UIA Executive Committee Chairman pointed out that the Tax Control Board, the executive, the legislature, and the union movement should sit down to discuss this controversy over benefits for the well-being of Puerto Rico’s workers and people . “We workers will not allow more rights to be taken from us and we will have to intensify our struggle to restore what we have lost,” he concluded.