Colombia's president sends congress referendum proposal that could overhaul labor laws

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Thursday pressed on with his struggling plan to overhaul the country’s labor laws, sending Congress a referendum proposal whose questions for voters include whether workdays should be limited to eight hours and whether workers should receive double pay if they work during holidays.

With much of his agenda repeatedly blocked by Congress, Petro is now betting that the same lawmakers who twice rejected his labor reform will allow voters to decide whether they want his proposed changes. Congress has one month to approve or reject the 12-question referendum.

Petro, Colombia’s first ever leftist president, sought to rally support for his project by participating in a union demonstration in the capital, Bogota, marking May Day.

“The people of Colombia want to vote for their fundamental rights, for their dignity," Petro said before thousands of demonstrators, asking them to not vote to reelect any lawmaker who votes against the referendum.

If approved by lawmakers, Petro will have to issue a decree summoning Colombians to the polls within three months. Questions for voters would include whether daytime workdays should end at 6 p.m. and whether open-ended contracts should be offered to workers to prioritize job stability.

But overcoming Congress is not Petro’s only concern in seeing his project become a reality. He needs referendum participation to exceed 13 million – that’s more than the number of votes he obtained to become president – and more than half of those votes must be in favor of his proposal.

Analysts agree that Petro has the upper hand in several scenarios, even if Congress does not approve the referendum or if he fails to obtain the necessary votes at the polls. In the former scenario, Sandra Borda, political science professor at the University of the Andes, said lawmakers would give Petro’s government the tools to “play the victim” and strengthen its rhetoric against Congress.

“The message the government has constantly tried to send is that Congress is no longer an entity that represents the interests of the people... but rather defends the interests, as they call them, of the private sector oligarchies,” Borda said.

On the other hand, if voters end up going to the polls, the government could consider itself the winner by securing support from its electoral base, said Javier Garay, a political science professor at the Externship University of Colombia. He noted that the referendum’s underlying purpose is to test the government’s electoral support ahead of the 2026 presidential election.

Union members who were among the thousands of people demonstrating Thursday in Bogota expressed support for the referendum.

“The referendum is a vindication of workers’ rights, which have been a struggle for decades and were taken away from us by previous far-right governments,” said Jesús Parra, 53, one of the protesters.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

President Gustavo Petro addresses supporters outside Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025, before presenting questions for a referendum on his labor reform proposal to the Senate after two failed attempts in the legislature. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Supporters of President Gustavo Petro rally outside Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025, before he presents questions for a referendum on his labor reform proposal to the Senate, (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Indigenous supporters of President Gustavo Petro march in favor of a referendum on his labor reform proposal, which he presented to the Senate in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Indigenous supporters of President Gustavo Petro attend a rally in favor of the referendum proposal on his labor reform that he submitted to the Senate in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

President Gustavo Petro addresses supporters outside Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025, before presenting questions for a referendum on his labor reform proposal to the Senate after two failed attempts in the legislature. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

President Gustavo Petro holds a sword that once belonged to independence hero Simón Bolívar during a speech to supporters outside Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025, before presenting a referendum proposal on his labor reform to the Senate following two failed attempts in the legislature. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

President Gustavo Petro holds a sword that once belonged to independence hero Simón Bolívar during a speech to supporters outside Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, Thursday, May 1, 2025, before presenting a referendum proposal on his labor reform to the Senate following two failed attempts in the legislature. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of New York City nurses returned to the picket lines Tuesday as their strike targeting some of the city’s leading hospital systems entered its second day.

Union officials say roughly 15,000 nurses walked off the job Monday morning at multiple campuses of three hospital systems: NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai.

The affected hospitals have hired droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap. Both nurses and hospital administrators have urged patients not to avoid getting care during the strike.

New York City, like the U.S. as a whole, has had an active flu season. The city logged over 32,000 cases during the week ending Dec. 20 — the highest one-week tally in at least 20 years — though numbers have since declined, the Health Department said last Thursday.

Roy Permaul, an intensive care unit nurse who was among those picketing in front of Mount Sinai's flagship campus in Manhattan, said he and his colleagues are prepared to walk off the job as long as needed to secure a better contract.

But Dania Munoz, a nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, stressed that the union’s fight wasn’t just about better wages.

“We deserve fair pay, but this is about safety for our patients, for ourselves and for our profession,” the 31-year-old Bronx resident said. “The things that we’re fighting for, we need. We need health care. We need safety. We need more staffing.”

The New York State Nurses Association said Tuesday that none of the hospitals have agreed to additional bargaining sessions with the union since their last meetings on Sunday.

It also complained that Mount Sinai, which operates seven hospitals, unlawfully fired three nurses hours after the strike started and improperly disciplined 14 others who had spoken out about workplace violence or discussed the union and contract negotiations with their colleagues.

Mount Sinai spokespersons said Tuesday the claims were “not accurate” and that they would provide more information later. Mt. Sinai has said approximately 20% of its nurses reported for work on the first day of the strike rather than picketing.

Meanwhile, Montefiore Medical Center said it has “not canceled even one patient’s access to care” during the work stoppage. The city Emergency Management Department said it hasn’t seen major impacts to patient care so far.

The hospital system also criticized unionized nurses for seeking “troubling proposals” such as demanding that nurses not be terminated, even if found to be compromised by drugs or alcohol while on the job.

The union said Montefiore was “blatantly mischaracterizing” one of its basic workplace proposals, which would have added protections for nurses dealing with substance use disorders and which has already been adopted in other hospitals around the state.

The labor action comes three years after a similar strike forced medical facilities to transfer some patients and divert ambulances.

As with the 2023 labor action, nurses have pointed to staffing issues as a major flashpoint, accusing the big-budget medical centers of refusing to commit to provisions for safe, manageable workloads.

The private, nonprofit hospitals involved in the current negotiations say they’ve made strides in staffing in recent years and have cast the union’s demands as prohibitively expensive.

On Monday, the city's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, stood beside nurses on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian, praising the union’s members for seeking “dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve.”

Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Nurses strike outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)