Maduro decrees adjustment in bonuses; there was no salary increase in Venezuela

President Nicolás Maduro decreed adjustments in the so-called “war bonus” that public employees receive and in the food bonus with “indexation” criteria, but did not announce an increase in the minimum wage that remains at 130 bolivars per month, the equivalent at $5.25 at the official rate.

The so-called war bond that began to be paid at the beginning of this year to public employees, retirees and pensioners, was adjusted to 20 dollars a month and the food voucher (Cestaticket), with which workers can buy food, to 40 dollars. .

However, Tuesday morning advertisement that the war bond would remain at 30 dollars and not 20 dollars as he had announced hours before.

Both bonds, he said, will be “periodically updated” at the exchange rate published by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).

“We have been fighting with a war bond, doing more with what we have (…) I have been maturing how to improve income over the course of these months until we can have financial strength and deal a definitive blow in the recovery of the salary of the Venezuelan worker,” Maduro said during an act on the occasion of International Workers’ Day.

Maduro asked the workers to resist vigorously until the “total recovery of wages” is achieved.

The president attributed the lack of resources to the sanctions of the international community and the plot of corruption in the state PDVSA.

Venezuelan workers and retirees who claimed they had no expectations regarding the announcements regarding May 1 and that on Monday in the morning they protested to demand wage claims, they insisted that increases that do not cover their basic needs are insufficient.

“Article 91 says that the salary must be established based on the cost of the basic food basket. The only way to have an equal salary is to fight from below, with your own criteria, ”he told the voice of america Gustavo Martínez, a member of the Marea Socialista party, in the middle of the protest registered on Monday morning in Caracas.

Orlando González, representative of Pensioners and Retirees from Trujillo state, some 600 kilometers southwest of Caracas, had spoken in favor of a “dignified” salary adjustment that allows them to pay for their medicines and guarantee their quality of life.

“It is a humiliation, it is an aberration and we want the increase that exceeds the food basket. Enough of so much humiliation,” he said when asked by VOA hours before the announcement.

In March, a family of five needed at least $510.88 to cover the food basket, according to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM).

The last salary increase decreed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro was in March 2022. At that time, the minimum salary was 130 bolivars, the equivalent of about 30 dollars a month at the official rate. Today, after the abrupt devaluation of the bolivar at the end of last year and the beginning of 2023, it barely exceeds 5 dollars.

Estimates from the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF) place accumulated inflation at 67.7%, while interannual inflation at 501%.

“Another mockery”

Luis Cano, leader of the Front of Retirees and Pensioners told the VOA that they still do not know how the bonus calculations will be handled, but he estimates that it is most likely that they will not have a salary incidence.

“Pensioners do not charge cestaticket. Some retirees, such as ours, who are health retirees, have it by collective agreement, but the one who is a pensioner does not have a Cestaticket, he continues to receive 130 bolivars plus the war bond, ”he explained.

Henrique Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate and pre-candidate for the opposition’s internal elections, described Maduro’s ads as “yet another mockery” of public workers and pensioners.

“More than 400 days having the highest inflation in the world without increasing the minimum wage and pension. Add to this that pensioners do not receive Cestaticket. The fight for a decent salary and pension will continue. Today it is ratified that it happens to change the government of Venezuelan history, ”he wrote on his Twitter account.

The Democratic Unitary Platform of Venezuela, which brings together a good part of the opposition parties, said it supported the indignation of Venezuelan workers and questioned that millions of retirees and pensioners are “marginalized and abandoned.”

“There was no increase, just the repeated story of the economic war, which once again is the wall with which the regime slaps Venezuelans. The only war is the one that the family wages every day to be able to resist hunger, ”he stressed in a statement.

The opposition coalition insisted that Monday’s announcements are “the height of nerve” and stated that “a better country with fair wages will only be possible through political change.”

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