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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced Thursday, Feb. 10, that his administration will finally address the long-stagnated issue of financial compensation for workers who were fired from the state-run Luz y Fuerza (LyFC) electricity company company in 2009, which was replaced by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

Under a new program, AMLO said, 8,892 former LyFC employees who had at least 19 years of service under their belts when they were fired, will finally get a pension and severance pay.

The measure “responds to a legitimate social demand to guarantee compensation to all those former workers who as of Oct. 11, 2009, had at least 19 years, six months and one day of service time,” explained Ernesto Prieto Ortega, head of Mexico’s Institute to Return to the People What Was Stolen from Them (INDEP) during AMLO’s daily press conference at the National Palace.

The liquidation of the state-run electricity company in October 2009 resulted in the firing of thousands of workers and the retirement process of some of them was cut short.

“There was great injustice in the firing more than 40,000 workers within the framework of the neoliberal privatization policy, and some of these workers are now at retirement age,” AMLO said.

“Now it has been decided that the government will support them.”

The compensation will be granted on a monthly basis and will range from between 3,200 pesos and a maximum of 67,000 pesos.