After eight days of striking and after several long meetings between representatives of the CCSS labor union and the Government, an agreement was reached to put an end to the strike that caused the cancellation of 82,872 scheduled appointments and more than 1,400 surgeries and 18,000 procedures .

The Executive Director of CCSS, Roman Macaya, celebrated the agreement that put an end to the strike, and he considered it “a victory for the Costa Rican population”.

The agreement basically transfers the responsibility of ruling on the conflict between the institution and the union labor to the Courts of Law. The disagreement comes from the application of Law 9635 and its reforms, which safeguards public finances by putting limits to the salary pluses (among other measures), and which came in effect after an internal agreement that had been made by the Union Labor and authorities of CCSS and that was made based on the legal frame valid at that time; this first agreement could no longer be enforced based on the new rulings set by Law 9635.

By transferring the responsibility to the Courts of Law, the old agreement will have to be respected until the Courts of Law rule otherwise, which could take as long as five years.

Members of the private sector, as well as some members of congress, reacted to this decision, considering that the government “gave in” and allowed strikers to “blackmail” them to get away with what they wanted.

“The country as a whole and the productive sector battles every day to not fall into the fiscal abyss and avoid further unemployment and informality by paying higher taxes. However, it seems that the law does not apply to everyone equally”, stated Gonzalo Delgado, president of the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of the Private Sector (UCCAEP).

President Carlos Alvarado has defended the decision of the Government stating that his responsibility is to “defend the lives of Costa Ricans, above all”, and made reference to the hundreds of thousands of people that were affected by the strike. He also highlighted that the CCSS is applying the Law for the Strengthening of Public Finances in other points.

According to Alvarado, Law 9635 will be applied by CCSS as it is in all other institutions, and they only agreed to allow the courts of law to review the annuities and benefits from 2018 and back.

“It is the lack of courage from past administrations that has brought us here. It is my job that this does not repeat itself, and govern for everyone”, concluded President Alvarado.

The private sector and other actors, however, consider that the Government opened a door for other Union Labors to call a strike as a means to pressure the Government into maintaining the privileges they have.