Economic growth is slowly on the rise in Central America, but extreme levels of poverty, low and stagnant wages and rampant inequality are hampering its acceleration, in addition to having devastating consequences on the region’s people. Poverty is unacceptably high across the region - with more than half of the population living in poverty in a number of countries - and inequality levels in the region are also among the highest in the world.
Minimum wages in the region fail to provide an adequate wage floor that ensures all workers the ability to meet basic living expenses. They are dismally low, and they tend to be fragmented across sectors, regions, and enterprise types and leave out a substantial portion of workers. At the same time, the possibility for workers to organize and collectively bargain for fair wages is also being compromised in many countries in the region as trade union rights are under attack.
With the Cerrar la Brecha: Salario Digno (Bridge the Gap for a Decent Wage) campaign, unions across the region are calling on their governments to set minimum wage floors and adequate social protection systems that allow workers in Central America and their families to live in dignity, and which will support Central American economic development. Central American countries have already made commitments along these lines within the EU-Central America Association Agreement. Unions are therefore calling on their governments, as well as the European Union, to ensure that their commitments to decent wages and decent work are realised.