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Nicaragua Employment Conditions
Conditions of work are covered by several labor laws
and are
also spelled out by articles in the 1987 Nicaraguan
constitution.
The constitution specifies no more than an eight-hour
workday in
a forty-eight-hour (six-day) work week, with an hour of
rest each
day. Health and safety standards are also provided for by
the
constitution, and forced labor is prohibited.
The Labor Code of 1945, patterned after Mexican labor
laws,
was Nicaragua's first major labor legislation. Provisions
of the
code prohibited more than three hours of overtime, three
times a
week. Workers were entitled to fifteen days of vacation
annually
(eight national holidays and seven saint's days). The
Nicaraguan
social security program, passed in 1957, enumerates
workers'
benefits, including maternity, medical, death, and
survivors'
benefits; pensions; and workers' compensation for
disability.
The constitution provides for the right to bargain
collectively. In addition, the Labor Code of 1945 was
amended in
1962 to allow for sympathy strikes, time off with pay when
a
worker has been given notice of an impending layoff, and
the
right to claim unused vacation pay when terminated. The
minimum
age for employment is fourteen, but the Ministry of Labor,
which
has the responsibility of enforcing labor laws, rarely
prosecutes
violations of the minimum-age regulation; young street
vendors or
windshield cleaners are a common sight in Managua, and
children
frequently work on family farms at a young age.
A National Minimum Wage Commission establishes minimum
wages
for different sectors of the economy. Enforcement of the
minimum
wage is lax, however, and many workers are paid less than
the law
allows. Labor groups have argued that the minimum wage is
inadequate to feed a family of four, and in 1992 the
country's
largest umbrella group of unions issued a statement
demanding
that the government index the minimum wage to the cost of
living.
Data as of December 1993
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