12 November 2015.
Managua – In the main auditorium of the Central American University (UCA) two months ago the “Social Compliance Management and Labor specialization course” was inaugurated.
After several months of hard work, Better Work Nicaragua in an effort to contribute with a tangible legacy to its participating companies, with the academic support of the Central American University and the strategies and support of the Ministry of Labor, developed a partnership to raise knowledge of the managers responsible for Human Resources, Occupational Health and Safety and socio-labor compliance of the textile and apparel industry.
“Raising the knowledge of these managers will raise compliance with labor regulations in our country,” affirmed, Blanca Peralta, manager of Better Work Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Dr. Renata Maria Rodrigues Vice-Dean of the university highlighted the great impact of this new tool, and hopes that initiatives such this one, are taken by other institutions to raise the professionalism of operations in factories and the country’s competitiveness.
In these three months of studies, aspects of the law, Occupational Health and Safety, good labor practices, and other important aspects were discussed.
Now a total of 25 textile managers became the first specialists in “social and labor compliance” of Nicaragua, raising the competitiveness of free zones factories of the country.
Before this specialization course, the country lacked trained specialists in this area, but this training gives their companies a higher professional and academic qualification of human resources management, said Blanca Peralta.
The country’s textile companies generate about 108,000 jobs nationwide. Dean Garcia, executive director of the Nicaraguan Association of Textiles and Apparel Industry (Anitec) highlighted that in the recent past, companies had to hire skilled foreign personnel for this field.
Now Nicaragua has qualified personnel with academic studies on socio-labor compliance and the industry has additional aspects to promote the country as one of the best destinations in the region for domestic and foreign investors.
“Strategies such as these, that lead to the enhancement of the country and to get new and future domestic and foreign investments are more than necessary, which is why the Government has supported the Better Work program since the very beginning, “declared Enrique Espinoza, Vice-Minister of Labor.