For decent pensions

Rafael Silva

Rebellion

" ... What is applied is a policy with four constants: austerity, that is, reduction of vital social expenses, direct and indirect salaries, pensions and retirement benefits, collective services, etc. Privatization, that is, selling everything the public, collective and common to the bourgeoisie at a bargain price, so that it can increase the average rate of profit even at the cost of popular impoverishment Flexibility, that is, destruction of socio-labor and democratic rights, political rights conquered by the working people but that they hinder bourgeois business, and repression, that is, to frighten the working classes so that they do not resist and above all, do not go on the offensive, so that they can be miserable in fear and in cowardly obedience " 
(Iñaki Gil de San Vicente )

A laps with the Public Pension System and its latest orchestrated attacks, it should be clarified in the first place that the defense of public pensions in its entirety is not only a matter of retired elderly people, since the system includes for people, In addition to the retirement itself at its corresponding age, other types of associated benefits, such as widow's orphans' pensions, orphanhood, protection against disability arising from any contingency, family benefits, maternity-paternity, health care and the rest of social services linked to all of them. The Public Pension System (hereinafter SPP) must be defended by the entire working class, since its multiple manifestations affect them to a greater or lesser extent over time. All the attack that the SPP is suffering is derived from the neoliberal offensive that is knocking down little by little the practical totality of the conquests of the working class during the last decades. In the end, the underlying idea and objective is for private banks to assume the role now held by Social Security, and to pay for the pensions of the elderly. But logically, if we take into account the trajectory of these entities and the references that have occurred in other countries, the panorama is certainly devastating. The underlying idea and objective is for private banks to assume the role now held by Social Security, and be responsible for the pensions of the elderly. But logically, if we take into account the trajectory of these entities and the references that have occurred in other countries, the panorama is certainly devastating. The underlying idea and objective is for private banks to assume the role now held by Social Security, and be responsible for the pensions of the elderly. But logically, if we take into account the trajectory of these entities and the references that have occurred in other countries, the panorama is certainly devastating.

We think that no agent or private entity can be responsible for this goal, because it is a fundamental human right, away from the desire for profit and benefit that any company can lawfully have. From this point of view, it must be the institutions and public bodies that continue to be in charge of it, but the plunder that they have been suffering from the last years here suggests that this matter needs an urgent rethinking. But stuck in flour, we also realize that the SPP can not be met with occurrences such as new taxes (as recently suggested by the PSOE to tax financial transactions, which is also a car that has risen late and bad), neither ordinary nor extraordinary, since they all depend on the level of collection that the State can make on them. The SPP is too important to depend on the vagaries of the market, or the collection of certain types of taxes that contribute to public coffers. But it is evident that the precariousness of the current working world (temporary employment, low wages, poor social protection, etc.) and the high levels of unemployment generated can not provide sufficient amounts for the SPP to be sustainable. What then is the solution? Obviously, and first, to rebuild a world of labor relations that has been practically destroyed by the latest Labor Reforms (both PP and PSOE), nullifying union power and collective bargaining, and linking all power and hegemony to business organizations. nor of the collection of certain types of taxes that contribute to the public coffers. But it is evident that the precariousness of the current working world (temporary employment, low wages, poor social protection, etc.) and the high levels of unemployment generated can not provide sufficient amounts for the SPP to be sustainable. What then is the solution? Obviously, and first, to rebuild a world of labor relations that has been practically destroyed by the latest Labor Reforms (both PP and PSOE), nullifying union power and collective bargaining, and linking all power and hegemony to business organizations. nor of the collection of certain types of taxes that contribute to the public coffers. But it is evident that the precariousness of the current working world (temporary employment, low wages, poor social protection, etc.) and the high levels of unemployment generated can not provide sufficient amounts for the SPP to be sustainable. What then is the solution? Obviously, and first, to rebuild a world of labor relations that has been practically destroyed by the latest Labor Reforms (both PP and PSOE), nullifying union power and collective bargaining, and linking all power and hegemony to business organizations. scarce social protection, etc.) and the high levels of unemployment generated can not provide sufficient amounts for the SPP to be sustainable. What then is the solution? Obviously, and first, to rebuild a world of labor relations that has been practically destroyed by the latest Labor Reforms (both PP and PSOE), nullifying union power and collective bargaining, and linking all power and hegemony to business organizations. scarce social protection, etc.) and the high levels of unemployment generated can not provide sufficient amounts for the SPP to be sustainable. What then is the solution? Obviously, and first, to rebuild a world of labor relations that has been practically destroyed by the latest Labor Reforms (both PP and PSOE), nullifying union power and collective bargaining, and linking all power and hegemony to business organizations.

But we still have some insecurity in the financing of the SPP if we derive everything and always to the world of work. A strong, stable and rights-based labor world, with low rates of unemployment, would allow, by itself, to cancel the dangerous uncertainties that hover over the SPP, but we should still give some more twists to definitely ensure the system. During recent years, the loss of purchasing power of pensioners has been alarming, because while the CPI has run its course, the revaluation of public pensions has not deviated from the 0.25% contemplated in the Decree that regulates them. Therefore, it is necessary first of all to revalue pensions to decent levels, and the sole return of the labor world to its previous conditions (something that remains to be seen) would not be a guarantee to achieve that goal. We need to unify (in the horizon we have the Universal Basic Income that would unite all the public benefits with this standard) the amount of the minimum pensions to the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI), raising these values ​​up to decent levels. And as we say, we have to put a new sustainability factor in the system, which will clear any kind of doubt about it. These policies must rest on the basis of full and scrupulous respect for fundamental human rights, then it is clear that if the current system of Social Security contributions is insufficient (or as a measure until it is enough again),

Because in effect, the PGE contemplate the financing of multiple public items of resources (salaries of all types of officials, for example), including spurious financing to certain elements that we understand as surpluses, such as financing to the Royal Household or the Catholic Church. , for not mentioning the amount of income that will be paid for the interest of the demented public debt we support, or the budgets (many of them disguised or hidden) destined to the policies of armaments, defense (or rather, attack) ). The question is very easy to enunciate: how is it possible that there are funds for all these items, and we can not guarantee funds to cover the SPP? Well, it's another of the indecent fringes we have to endure, especially if we compare the difficulties of every salaried or autonomous person to receive a decent pension, compared with the privileges of our politicians, bankers and big businessmen, who can make up in some cases up to 3 pensions, or charge the maximum pension having quoted only 10 years, or self-award millionaire compensation before liquidating the entity, while the other workers are sent the message that you have to retire the later the better, and even, if you can, retire combining the pension with a job. The embarrassments of this unjust system appear everywhere. It is imperative to break with this panorama. More than a magic solution, 

The cheap demographic calculations that tell us about the evolution of life expectancy are not valid, because those who argue this fallacy are the same ones who propose private pension plans, or who have been degrading and precarizing the labor market for years. We must break with the limitations referred to exclusive financing through social contributions, opening the field to public financing through the PGE, and we must create stable jobs with rights, instead of continuing to base the speech in mantras as the "20 million employed", which in reality will be occupied in being numbers of a temporary statistic. Economic priorities would be to restore the purchasing power of pensioners (plummeted since 2011), return the link of the rise in pensions to the CPI, and synchronize the minimum pension with the SMI and other basic benefits, reaching up to 1,000 euros per month. At the social level, we need to standardize our figures to the European values ​​of our environment, reduce (even cancel) the gender gap in pensions, eliminate all types of co-payments (rather re-payment) that are imposed on pensioners, and guarantee the services of basic supplies (energy, water, transport ...). All this must be supported by a set of legal measures that rely on the acceptance of the SPP as a constitutional right contemplated in the PGE, the reestablishment of the ordinary retirement at age 65, which contemplates early retirement without any penalty (that is, with 100% of the regulatory base from 40 years of contributions), the integration and harmonization of the contributions of all Social Security schemes, and the recovery of the indefinite subsidy for people over 52 years of age. For all this, we only need the necessary political will.

Blog of the author: http: //rafaelsilva.over-blog. is

Rebelión has published this article with the permission of the author through a Creative Commons license , respecting their freedom to publish it in other sources.