Decree 1174 “does not promote any form of contracting,” says President Iván Duque

President Iván Duque denied that Decree 1174 of 2020, to regulate labor informality in Colombia, is a labor reform and that the conditions of workers in the country are deteriorating, as many affirm this Tuesday.

“Is the form of contracting being affected in the country or is a form of contracting labor being promoted? No, no form of contracting is being promoted with the decree,” he assured in the midst of the daily broadcast that he has carried out since the start of the emergency due to covid-19.

He points out that the regulations seek to correct “a circumstance accumulated for years in Colombia of inequality due to which many people are aging and do not have protection for old age. They have not been able to contribute to those schemes, also saving protection for old age.”

According to Duque, in the country one in four people over 65 have access to a protection mechanism for old age, and in particular, to a pension. She said that this has been an accumulated social problem over the years, where informality plays a determining role that must be corrected.

For his part, the Minister of Labor, Ángel Custodio Cabrera, indicated that with this decree no article of the labor code is being changed, because new forms of hiring are not being created, much less affecting pensions.

“What are we doing? Looking for people who have not started any type of hiring, therefore, it is a regulatory decree of the National Development Plan and the periodic economic benefits program was created in 2009 and therefore we are not creating anything different from what that exists ”, indicated the minister.

In the country there are about 22 million economically active people, of which about 9 million are paying health and pension contributions, which means that almost 13 million do not make any social contribution, he added.

Decree 1174 establishes that people who earn less than a minimum wage can make health and pension contributions for an amount lower than what has been established so far.

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