Caracas (AFP) – Hundreds of Venezuelan workers and pensioners marched Monday for an increase in “hunger” wages, as well as pensions frozen for four years and eroded by galloping inflation. The monthly minimum wage currently equates to around 28 US cents, while annual price hikes surpass 600 percent. The last wage increase came in 2022 when then-president Nicolas Maduro, ousted in a US military operation on January 3, passed a decree lifting the monthly level to $28. But the value of Venezuela’s currency has plummeted since then.
“This is no salary,” pensioner Pilar Navarro, 72, told AFP. “What can you do with this good-for-nothing pension? Were it not for my son helping me out, I’d be unable to buy my medicine,” she complained at the march in the capital, Caracas. Government vouchers lift income to $150 a month, but that still falls far short of the amount a family needs to buy basic foodstuffs—$645, according to private estimates. “Free salaries,” read one banner at the rally, a reference to the “Free Maduro” motif the government has used to demand Maduro’s release from jail in New York.
A squadron of motorcyclists, supporters of Maduro and his charismatic Socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez, obstructed the march as it approached the labor ministry. Riot police also blocked their path. Unions are demanding a minimum wage of at least $200, appealing for recourse from a fund set up after Maduro fell. The fund is said to contain revenue from oil sales facilitated by the United States as part of its new relationship with interim president Delcy Rodriguez. A government website shows fund income of $300 million and the same amount earmarked for a minimum wage increase, without providing any further details.
“If oil money has been paid into the fund, they must use it to increase salaries,” said union leader Griselda Sanchez. Nonetheless, economists say Venezuela is in no position to raise wages to the level demanded. Pro-Maduro elements continued to urge the lifting of international sanctions on Venezuela, which they roundly blame for the nation’s economic ills. Without sanctions, “we can better address the wages issue,” said powerful interior minister, Diosdado Cabello.
© 2024 AFP
