Public workers in Venezuela take to the streets to demand better wages

Hundreds of Venezuelan public workers, including teachers, nurses and retired police officers, took to the streets on Monday to demand better wages as the government of President Nicolás Maduro grapples with rising inflation.

Since the beginning of the year, employees of the education and health sector have held three peaceful demonstrations in a dozen cities in the country, where the minimum wage was adjusted for the last time in March 2022. Last year inflation closed at 234%. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said Monday.

The minimum wage and monthly pension in Venezuela is 130 bolivars, or about $6 at the official rate.

From a balcony of the government palace, where supporters arrived at the end of the march of just over 2 kilometers in downtown Caracas, Maduro said that just as they had overcome other crises, they would also overcome “the criminal sanctions that torture” to Venezuela.

In the Andean state of Táchira, Verónica Castaño Martínez, a 57-year-old cook, declared that she supported the rally in favor of the president “so that they release the money that the United States has, so that they can pay us all a fair wage.”

The workers, however, appeal to the president to adjust wages. “(Mature) You eat every day (…) Think of this townsaid Nancy Hernández, a 60-year-old teacher in Barquisimeto, in the western state of Lara.

“Hunger knows no fear, when hunger comes fear is lost”, added the teacher who earns 15 dollars a month and referring to the fact that her colleagues do not fear police action to stop the demonstrations.

The delay in the salary review has been part of the government’s policy of restricting public spending, which, together with the exchange rate anchor and the credit limit, have sought to curb inflation, according to analysts. A strategy that shows cracks due to rising prices.

In Maracaibo, the capital of the once-powerful oil-rich state of Zulia in northwestern Venezuela, protesters walked about a kilometer to the governor’s office.

“What we are experiencing is more than abuse. We are starving.” said Gustavo González, a policeman on the reserve in Zulia. “We are going to have to close the police hospital because (…) there is not a single piece of cotton. We Zulia police are forgotten, we don’t have shoes or uniforms”, he added.

Humberto Montiel, a pensioner from the airport construction area, commented, “I never thought I would reach 63 years of age in this way, asking, trusting the supply to eat. I have to pick up garbage, clean patios because when my pension misery ends I am left with my hunger intact”.

In the central city of Valencia, José Francisco Jiménez, 56 and general secretary of the Association of Employees of the University of Carabobo, said that “with a salary of 10 dollars, it is impossible for a family of 4 or 5 people to live”.

“I don’t live on that salary (…) I have had to do delivery (home deliveries), work as a taxi driver and a plumber. It’s the only way I can survive”, he added.

Source: Reuters