Honduras News – Daily News about Honduras

Employers are asking for flexibility in the negotiation process of the minimum wage this year, and workers have asked to suspend the talks for 15 days. If agreed, the negotiations would reconvene on January 21, 2010, six days before the inauguration of President-elect of the Republic, Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

The director of the National Association of Industrialists (ANDI), Fernando Garcia, said that delaying negotiations will slow new investment into Honduras, and the opening of local businesses that depend on determining a new minimum wage.

[Read more →]

Negotiators from the labor unions propose to set a minimum wage of 8,500 lempiras, according to the leader of the Confederation of Workers of Honduras (CUTH), Jose Luis Baquedano.

“In this country to live more or less, a worker must earn monthly lempiras of 8,500 to cover the cost of basic food, and health, housing, education and utilities,” said the labor leader.

“If a minimum wage is based on nothing more than basic food, that means that the worker is unable to meet demand for housing, health and education, we must speak of fair wages to improve living conditions” he said.

[Read more →]

The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a new report on the Honduran economy today. The report finds that the economy has become especially vulnerable to the combined impacts of the world recession and the political crisis that has followed the events of June 28th.

“The whole region (Central America) has been hit by the U.S. recession,” said Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of CEPR. “But things have worsened in Honduras since the coup in June and it is difficult to see how the economy will recover without a solution to the political crisis.”

[Read more →]

Honduran union leaders and government authorities questioned the decision of some representatives of the business sector to impugn the new minimum wage.

The Minister of Labor, Mayra Mejia, criticized the determination of members of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP) and considered that business executives should understand the cost of the basic food basket that is higher even than what had been considered during the government of Manuel Zelaya.

Before ratifying the state decree on December 24 of 2008 the minimum wage in Honduras was approximately 180 dollars (3,400 lempiras) and as a result of the decree it rose to 5,500 lempiras (about 292 dollars).

[Read more →]