Big business says it wants to improve severance pay, not kill it

Santo Domingo.- The country’s major companies grouped in the Conep on Tuesday said in the talks to amend the labor code, they don’t seek to eliminate workers’ severance pay, but make it "more efficient and more attractive instead."

"What we are saying is not to remove it, it’s that we sit down within this process to amend the labor code to see how we can make it more efficient and more attractive to generate more formal employment," said Conep president Manuel Diez Cabral, Interviewed by NCDN Channel 37.

Conep executive director Rafael Paz said 80% of the private sector workers, including those in the public sector don’t have the labor code’s seven protections, which range from health and safety to social security.

"What we’re talking about is expanding, of creating a code that expands the rights of all workers in the Dominican Republic, primarily for the micro and small companies," Paz said.