Today is the last day employers have to pay the annual Christmas Bonus (Aguinaldo). In an interview with La Extra on Wednesday, Labor Minister Olman Segura stated that employers who don’t pay the bonus are subject to strong penalties, including jail time.

Segura said that it would be embarrassing for any employer to be penalized for not paying what is a right every worker has, and explained that as of Friday his office would begin to receive complaints from workers and begin the process of getting employers to pay as quickly as possible. Inspectors will work from December 26th to December 28th taking complaints and visiting work places to notify employers who have been named in complaints.

Segura stated that “if in the first notification the employer doesn’t pay, then we will counsel the workers on taking the case to court, since at that point the non-payment classifies as a crime”.

The Aguinaldo is an “extra salary” that all employers must pay within the first 20 days of December each year to all workers, regardless of their position. Employers who do not pay are fined from 7 to 23 base salaries, a bureaucratic unit of measurement — currently 360,600 colones.

Employees may also file a complaint in the Labor Court, because when employers don’t pay then they are committing the crime of “undue withholding”, which would force the employer to pay interest and possibly jail time, if convicted.

But basically you add up the monthly salary for any worker for the period of Decmeber 1st 2011 through November 30th of 2012. Then divide by 12. If the worker is a domestic employee who sleeps and eats at the house, then a 50% bonus must be added to the calculated amount.