Venezuela's New Labour Law: The Best Mother's Day Gift

[Magda Hassan]

Published on Friday, May 17, 2013 by Rabble.ca

Venezuela's New Labour Law: The Best Mother's Day Gift

by Thomas Ponniah

Here is some news that the conservative critics of Venezuela's leftist government will not publicize.

The Chavistas announced that a new labour law, part of which will grant recognition to non-salaried work traditionally done by women, will come into effect this week. Full-time mothers will now be able to collect a pension.

While there are a number of criticisms to be made of the Venezuelan government, the genius of the Bolivarian process is that it combines numerous forms of struggle against inequality. The most obvious lies in its commitment to economic redistribution, and measured by the Gini co-efficient, Venezuela has the lowest rate of inequality in Latin America. An equally significant form of struggle against inequality, however, lies in its pursuit of gender equity.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/17-3

Excellent news and long over due. In fact the whole notion of what constitutes 'work' needs to be re-addressed all over the world. There is never going to be full employment even in a worker run egalitarian society. Not all work is paid work. The work still needs to be done and people still need to eat. On other planets people like bankers receive shitloads of money for doing nothing at all productive or of any value to the greater society.