AMERICA/CHILE - Bishop Goic: "a society of more equity, for life with more dignity "

Tuesday, 8 March 2016 local churches   poverty  

Patricia Alim Riquelme Wolpat

AMERICA/CHILE - Bishop Goic: "a society of more equity, for life with more dignity "

Rancagua (Agenzia Fides) – Bishop Alejandro Goic Karmelic, of the diocese of Rancagua who is about to celebrate fifty years of priesthood (12 March 1966), affirmed that the minimum wage in force since 1 January this year is not in keeping with the present situation.
"What we said in 2007 is still true – the Bishop said in a note sent to Fides -. We must put ourselves in the shoes of the poorest people. At the time I indicated a symbolic sum, but that was ten years ago, and it is clear that 250,000 pesos then, do not correspond to 2016. We must realise that wealth can be distributed with more equity, to enable everyone to live with dignity".
In 2007, a few weeks after the state mining company Codelco reached an agreement with discontent subcontract workers (see Fides 23/04/2008), Bishop Goic said in an interview on Chilean television, that the basic wage of 144.000 pesos (US $ 277,5) needed to be replaced with a "moral wage", which he thought should not be lower than 250.000 pesos (US $ 480). In his intervention at the time, he drew contrasting reaction from politicians, social groups and the country’s entrepreneurs.
"The solution is to find a way to be a society of more equity. Chile appears to be one of world’s countries with less equity and in this we must improve. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 08/03/2016)



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