Lima, Oct. 31, 2006- The Ministers and Vice-Ministers of Labor of the Andean Community Member Countries agreed today to boost and complete, before this year is out, the work of regulating Community social security and labor migration legislation, in order to ensure its full applicability in the subregion. 

They accordingly approved a schedule of six meetings over the next six weeks, which will come to an end this coming December 15, in Quito, Ecuador, with the holding of the Third Andean Regional Conference on Employment, which will be attended by the Ministers of Labor and of Economy of the CAN Member Countries.  

The agreements were reached at the Tenth Meeting of the Advisory Council of Ministers of Labor of the Andean Community held today as a videoconference under the Chairmanship of the Vice-Minister of Labor of Bolivia, Miguel Ángel Albarracín.

The participants were the Minister of Labor of Peru, Susana Pinilla, and the Vice-Ministers of Labor of Colombia and Ecuador, Jorge León Sánchez Mesa and  Lisandro Martínez, respectively, together with the acting Secretary General of the CAN, Alfredo Fuentes. Also present were the Executive Secretary of the Andean Health Body – the Hipólito Unanue Convention, Oscar Feo, and the representative of the ILO, Francisco Verdera.

It was agreed at the meeting to boost the Working Plan of the Office of the Chairman of the CAN Advisory Council of Ministers of Labor for the 2006-2007 period, which also provides for actions to put the Andean Labor Observatory into operation and to secure the entry into effect of the Protocol of Substitution of the “Simón Rodríguez” Sociolabor Convention, among other things. 

Peruvian Minister of Labor and Employment Promotion, Susana Pinilla, expressed her full accord with completing the regulation of the pending Andean sociolabor legislation shortly and reported that, in application of Decision 545, the Registry of Andean Workers was opened and to date has been signed by 91 workers who migrated to Peru from the other Andean countries, 64 of them from Colombia, 14 from Ecuador, 6 from Bolivia and 7 from Venezuela.

The acting Secretary General of the CAN, Alfredo Fuentes Hernández, for his part, emphasized that the Advisory Council of Ministers has an enormous responsibility for completing the approval and implementation of the technical regulations that will enable Andean workers to exercise their Community right to circulate freely and to settle in any Member Country for working purposes and will guarantee their right to social security.