The Labor Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of San Jose declared illegal the strike promoted by the National Association of Public Employees (ANEP) in the Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements (MIVAH) stating that the movement did not comply with the requirements established in the Labor Procedures Code.

This is the second sentence by Labor Courts of the more than thirty requests that were presented by different institutions affected by the strike, the first one was dictated Friday for the employees of the National Production Council, in this case the movement was also ruled illegal.

The sentence, number 1846-2018 was dictated by Judge Sofía Sancho Valerín this Monday, September 24; the Judge considered that the labor union in this Ministry did not have the support of the minimum number of employees as required by law.

Contrary to the first sentence where Judge Arnoldo Alvarez Desanti ruled the strike illegal based on the criteria that the strike is a mechanism to resolve conflicts related to labor situations and not of political order, in this second resolution, Judge Sancho considers that even when employees are protesting a public policy and not a dispute with their employer, the fact that they are protesting something the employees’ consider to affect their economic interests gives the movement a legitimate character, the illegality of the “strike” resides in the failure to meet legal requirements in relation to the minimum number of supporters the movement had within this Ministry (MIVAH).

The labor union now has three days to present an appeal, and it’s not until this is resolved that the sentence is considered “firm”.