Nicaraguan workers without rights

On International Workers’ Day we express our solidarity with the Nicaraguan public and private sector workers prevented by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo from organizing, protesting and fighting for their labor rights. They have been tied up and subjected to the control of the white Sandinista unions, which far from representing them, mediatize their demands and use them politically.

The repression of the police and dictatorial state prevents them from commemorating this day with marches and civic acts as happens in the rest of the world.

Between 2018 and 2023, real wages were reduced by almost half. Unemployment disguised as underemployment affected 38 out of every hundred Nicaraguans, and in Managua, almost 50 out of every hundred people. Ortega not only prevents access to jobs and decent wages, he has also decimated pensions. For those who retire with a salary of 10,000 córdobas, these went from 7,200 córdobas to 4,300 córdobas. All this explains the poverty and extreme poverty in which thousands of Nicaraguan families live.

The violation of the labor rights of public sector employees has the rank of law. Compensations for dismissals or resignations were modified to the detriment of workers and in open violation of the Labor Code. Hundreds have been dismissed and stripped of their benefits. Those affected cannot protest or appeal to the Ministry of Labor or the courts, since the dictatorship has turned them into instruments of control and repression.

The absence of legal certainty and the fiscal harassment of private companies affects the generation of jobs. Thousands of Nicaraguans have been forced to leave the country in search of job opportunities that the dictatorship denies them. Our country is losing human capital, a treasure that will be difficult to replace and whose lack will be evident in the economy in the medium term.

From the Concertación Democrática Nicaragüense CDN-Monteverde, we are committed to restore their rights, to multiply employment opportunities, to promote the recovery of wages and to restore their pensions and benefits.

A better life is possible, better salaries are possible, respect for labor rights is possible, more and better jobs are possible. To achieve all this it is indispensable to get out of the dictatorship that suffocates us and denies us freedom and prosperity.

For a just and democratic Nicaragua: The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship will fall!