“Not one more step, Labor Reform already”. The slogan accompanied the mobilizations in the main cities of Colombia in favor of UY is at the gates of a shipwreck. The marches in Bogotá, Medellín, Barranquilla and other urban centers sought this Tuesday to avoid not only the failure of the project, but to give a signal in favor of a government that appealed again to the street to regain forces. The opposition ensures that Petro is already in Electoral “campaign Facing the 2026 elections in which the left for now has no candidate.
Unions, students, informal workers and representatives of the indigenous movement expressed their discontent for the “blockade” to one of the laws that constitute the heart of Petro’s political program. “Why do they oppose that Sunday, which is to rest is paid double? Why can’t there be four weeks of paternity license? “asked the director of the Department for Social Prosperity (DPS), Gustavo Bolívar, in his call to Colombians to support the reform.
Eight of the 14 members of the Seventh Commission of the Senate decided to file the initiative. Petro’s first response was to call a popular consultation that has no date. At the same time, the government considered that the first and perhaps effective pressure to legislators could be social. Senators prepare to discuss the contents of the project again. The media estimate that the majority negative position will be maintained. Senator Berenice Bedoya (as) said that mobilizations are looking for “intimidate” to the members of Congress. “I do not act before pressures, I act in the face of realities. “
Rejections and supports
A good part of the Business sector resists reform Because he fears that labor costs will increase. The defenders remember that Colombia is one of the countries in the worse region pays extra hours and that the current system has not allowed to solve two endemic problems: the paro and the informality. Colombia has is the second Latin American country with the highest rate of people without employment and the third in workforce without the slightest protection.
“The reasons for today’s civic day are so delznable as debates and rhetorical pirouettes that have occurred around the call,” said the Bogota newspaper ‘El Espectador’, about mobilization. “Colombia entered in electoral times. What is coming will only be more and more polarization in search of political revenues “he added.
Petro defended the marches in favor of the reform in the absence of a negotiated exit with his adversaries. “If there is an institutional blockade against this government (…) then it is the people to break that institutional blockade,” he said last week when he launched the idea of a popular consultation. If the Senate finally ratifies its position, the ruling party believes that there is still a legal loophole: appealing the opinion.
The president has crossed more than half of a mandate that imagined as a turning point in Colombia’s political history. He has faced successive internal crises and has not been able to successfully consummate another of his boldest proposals: Total peace. In the midst of the mobilizations, disagreement was made public between Petro and his Minister of Finance, Diego Guevara, who will be replaced by Germán Ávila Plazas. The position has already been occupied by five officials who collided with the executive’s leadership for different reasons.
The government has a positive valuation of 35.8%according to a recent survey, 2.5 points more than in January 2024. Petro believes that there are conditions to resume the offensive and also get the reform of the health system to come to fruition. Presidential trust is expressed in social networks where the growth of the economy has just celebrated in January 2.6%.
