Pensioners in the crosshairs of adjustment
The PSOE-United We Can government and the union bureaucracy continue to liquidate social conquests.
The Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security closed an agreement with the employer and the main unions to carry out the first reform package of the pensions.
As a result of several months of negotiations, the agreement reached by the Social Board, made up of Minister José Luis Escrivá, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and the unions CC.OO. y UGT, means that pensions are revalued with inflation by law, as well as expressly repeal the sustainability factor of the reform of the PP of 2013. What is the real meaning of these measures for active and passive workers?
The rise of pensions are linked to the consumer price index (IPC). The eraser fixed that pensions will be raised in January with an average of the interannual variation of the CPI for the twelve months prior to December of the year previous. If that mean is negative, the amount of pensions will be frozen at beginning of the year.
The sustainability factor is modified by an intergenerational equity factor that impoverishes pensions at an older age. In other words, to incentivize delayed retirement, which is currently hardly used in Spain, and in this way extend work careers, the Government will set incentives for its extension: a raise in the pension of 4 % for every year of delay, a single check of up to 12.000 euros or a mixture of both. People who take early retirement voluntarily are penalized. The draft establishes that in case of wanting to access the benefit before the corresponding age, the percentages, that remain on the amount of pension for those who decide to retire up to two years before reaching the legal age, range from a maximum of 21 % in the event of wanting to withdraw from the market two years before having less than 38 years and 6 months quoted at a minimum of 2,81 % for those who choose to retire a month before and have more than 44 Years and a half.
The Public Pension System is modified (SPP) by introducing private company plans, that only benefit banks and unions, which leads to the deterioration of the SPP and the introduction of capitalization systems. The presentation of the pension reform only reaffirms that the highest authorities intend to comply with the demands of the European Union to receive the millionaire aid promised by the pandemic..
The truth is that Spain is among the most "Mediocre" of the world in terms of its pension system and that once again they want to take those who worked all their lives and future pensioners as an adjustment variable, when pensions are not a bargaining chip. As denounced by the General Coordinator of Pensioners of Madrid, the coalition government of the PSOE-Unidas Podemos made this presentation to “Delay the retirement age by encouraging it and penalize early retirement with the loss of social rights, when the country has the highest levels of youth unemployment in the EU, around 42%”. Like we have already said “It is false to affirm that there is no money to finance the public pension system with a retirement age of 55 years, a decent and adjustable income based on the increase in the cost of living and paid in full by the employers”.
The pensioners demand that the parties not support the reforms promoted by the PSOE-UP coalition, employers and the union bureaucracy. What we denounce once again is that, both from the government of "Progressive coalition" as from the bureaucratic conducts of the UGT and CC.OO. they continue to liquidate social conquests and are dedicated to protecting the profits of the entrepreneurs above the needs of the popular majorities. It is necessary to recreate the great national pensioner mobilizations and impose from below a general strike of active workers to stop this new advance on our rights. Capitalists should pay for the crisis, not the working people.
