Government asks for additional work day to compensate for proposed October 31st holiday

To see international photos, click here

SANTIAGO.- While awaiting the Senate vote on the bill to declare October 31st a holiday in celebration of the Evangelical Churches, the Minister of the Presidency, José Antonio Viera-Gallo has indicated that, if the initiative gets a green light, the government will require that a work day be recuperated so as not to affect the economic activity of the country, since it would fall right before the holiday observed on the 1st of November.

"We want to recuperate the lost work-day. Chile has too many public holidays — there are 18, the average number for a European country is nine. Of course, if you look at the list of public holidays in Chile, they are all important", the minister told Radio ADN.

Viera-Gallo stated that officials are doing everything they can to have the bill approved and added that they are also carefully analyzing which public holiday it would replace.

With regards to the time period necessary to execute the initiative, Viera-Gallo did not rule out the possibility of October 31st of this year being a public holiday, pointing out that the matter would have to be decided by the senators.