Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 1995, publiée 82ème session CIT (1995)

1. In its previous comments the Committee has requested the Government to provide information on the extension to all agricultural wage-earners of the benefit of the social security laws and regulations which provide for the compensation of workers for personal injury by accident arising out of or in the course of their employment, in accordance with Article 1 of the Convention. In its reply the Government states that at present the social security scheme is applied to all workers employed in the rural areas irrespective of their professional activity. The Committee notes this information. It also notes, according to the Quarterly Statistical Report of the Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security and Welfare (INSSBI) for the second quarter of 1993, supplied by the Government with its report on Convention No. 17, that in practice social security coverage has shown a clear downward trend and that the social security system counted only 10,679 contributors in the rural areas of the country. In this situation the Committee would like the Government to indicate measures taken to extend progressively the coverage of the social security to rural areas, so that all agricultural wage-earners benefit in practice from the protection provided by the social security scheme in case of employment injuries.

2. The Committee notes the Government's statement concerning social security benefits provided for workers in rural areas. It therefore once again hopes that the Government will have no difficulty in repealing section 103 of the Labour Code (which allows judges to reduce the compensation due to workers sustaining occupational injury in small agricultural enterprises) in order to grant all agricultural wage-earners the same benefits as those granted to other wage-earners, in accordance with the Convention.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 1997.]