The authorities of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) showed that the decision of the central government to issue a decree that established “new” conditions on annuities was the trigger for the strike.
It is a complex situation, obviously we would have preferred that there was only one decree, but we do not have to decide what the rules of the game are, we have to implement them,”
said Macaya.
The legal director of the CCSS, Gilberth Alfaro, explained that the famous agreement of February 20th was not intended to pass over the Law on Strengthening of Public Finance; on the contrary, it was made in the light of an existing Executive Decree (of the February 18th, 2019) where it was said that the pre-law annuities would be respected in their value and the way in which they were calculated.
They deny that the agreement is above the law, since it was made in the light of the existing decree that made the exception that the acquired rights of the employees could not be diminished.
The annuities before the law were granted with percentages (…)
but the decree that comes on May 22nd, changed the rule, the annuities that were before the law -now that decree says so- will continue to be paid with a nominal amount,”
said the lawyer.
In all the rest, the institution claims to have implemented the new law, in fact, there were conversations with the unions where they requested that the 20 years of unemployment be respected but the CCSS indicated that in compliance with the law they should only be eight years.