Venezuela’s Chavez: Informal Workers to Receive Social Security

[polly7]

Venezuela’s Chavez: Informal Workers to Receive Social Security
By Ewan Robertson

http://www.zcommunications.org/venezuela-s-chavez-informal-workers-to-receive-social-security-by-ewan-robertson

Self-employed and informal sector workers in Venezuela are to be included in the nation’s social security system, following an announcement by President Hugo Chavez last Saturday.

The Law of Social Security will be changed to allow informally employed workers to register with the Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS) and make social security payments.

“This good news means that taxi drivers, street sellers, fishermen, farmers, lawyers, dentists, all informal and self-employed workers, can now claim social security and have a pension in the future,” commented Venezuelan Vice President Elias Jaua of the measure.

The announcement comes as the Venezuelan government prepares to approve the new Labour Law by 1 May, which among other measures is expected to establish a new social security fund supported by state oil company PDVSA.

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[Peace Patriot]

1. Another success for Venezuela's "New Deal"...

...while ours gets assailed by transglobal corporations and the greedy rich, alas!

[naaman fletcher]

2. Well,

I would be pissed if I was a regular worker paying my taxes while people who cheat the government and don't pay their taxes get the same benefits.

How is that just?

Informal workers are tax cheats. Since when was DU in favor of tax cheats?

[ChangoLoa]

5. Nope. Informal workers are 45% of the Venezuelan labor force.

It's one of the main factors explaining poverty (the real one, not the purely monetary IMF-logic based poverty used by govts).

This law is generous but incomplete and misdirected. The govt should make an effort to include these workers in the formal sector, not just put a small band-aid. Workers are still unprotected by the law, bosses can kick them out for no reason (I know this seems normal to USians but the rest of the world doesn't work that way, bosses need to give a reason to fire workers), they can't get a credit in a bank which means, for example, that they can't buy a house at a normal rate, they're forced to ask money to loan sharks and pay 5 times the normal interest rate, etc, etc, etc...

[bemildred]

3. Shameless pandering to the poor.

[ChangoLoa]

4. 14 year old promise still not kept.