The government project to reform the pension system in Uruguay was severely questioned this Thursday by thousands of protesters who responded to the call for strikes and the mobilization made by the single union of workers, the PIT-CNT, who denounced that the initiative, which already has Half sanction, means the loss of rights for the majority sectors.
“It is increasingly clear that the reform is detrimental to the interests of the vast majority of the working people,” warned the head of the PIT-CNTMarcelo Abdal, on the initiative that proposes, among various modifications, to increase the retirement age from 60 to 65 years, in a gradual process that does not cover the entire population.
it was while Thousands of Uruguayans, who had gathered on the esplanade of the University of the Republic, in the center of Montevideo, were advancing towards the headquarters of the Legislative Palace.
It was about taking a protest message to the deputies, who have the text under discussion and plan to take it to the venue next week, after it received half a sanction by the Senate at the end of the year.
In a brief dialogue with the Télam agency, before his speech, Abdala considered the mobilization “very good”. “A very important action by the working class,” he said.
The leader warned that the reform “for massive contingents of the working class generates fewer rights, taking away conditions that have nothing to do with the country’s traditions,” and made it clear that “social security is a mechanism for the protection of people, and it is not solved by the market economy”.
This project “implies a setback, maintains a perspective in which the majority sectors of the population are losing rights; the majority of the population does not share this retirement reform, “he insisted, according to Caras y Caretas.
But if they approve it, be very clear that they will have the forceful opposition of the union movement and the popular movement as a whole. #quenoterobenelfuturo #anotherreformispossible
PIT-CNT
???? G. Schiaffarino pic.twitter.com/gGzIYdUu93
— PIT CNT (@PITCNT1) March 23, 2023
The initiative was defended, on the other hand, by the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Pablo Mieres, for whom the reform that the Government intends to approve is not detrimental to workers. “If not, I would not agree,” she said in statements to Channel 10.
added that “extending the retirement age is inevitable”, and questioned the PIT-CNT and the Broad Front for criticizing the project without presenting an alternative one. “There was never an alternative document. Opposing something is a bun”, he affirmed, an expression that in Uruguay means that it is simple.
In addition to reiterating that the changes in the system are “necessary”, Mieres reported that the Executive received 80 delegations “of all kinds” for the assembly of the project. “It is much more than the famous dialogue that the Broad Front generated in 2008,” he compared.
The strike affected various sectors, including education, banking, transportation partially and strongly health.
Abdala pointed out that the reform affects “also all other sectors, like small businessmen, who have their interests linked to internal demand, to the internal market”.
“The reform raises the retirement age when the current technological revolution should call us to debate a socially equitable distribution of available work” and also “reduces pensions”he insisted.
“The fight continues,” concluded the referent of the plant, according to the website of the newspaper El País.
from the stage, The Secretary of Organization of the PIT-CNT, Enrique Méndez, described the pro-government initiative as “brutal and criminal”which, he warned, breaks with “a social pact built over decades.”
“Social security is a conquest of the working class, a fight that the popular camp gave in the face of the unfair unequal conditions of the market economy whose leitmotiv is to seek indiscriminate profit without thinking about social vulnerabilities,” Méndez reviewed.
???? This afternoon, within the framework of the partial general strike of the @PITCNT1Thousands of us gathered in Plaza Independencia and marched to the Intersocial tent, in front of the Legislative Palace. pic.twitter.com/myNXXd7y7y
– AEBU (@Aebu_Uruguay) March 23, 2023
For the leader of the dairy workers, The objective of the Government of Luis Lacalle Pou is to impose the project “as a brutal synthesis of the adjustment process that it has been taking.”
“Take this retirement and pension reform as a bastion today to continue hitting the popular and most vulnerable sectors of our society,” he said.
Lucía Padula spoke for Intersocial, who judged that with the initiative the government “continues to demonstrate that its administration favors the gold mesh (wealthy classes) and claims that all crises are paid for by the workers and workers and the most vulnerable sectors of society”.
The Executive “lacks a gender perspective, ignores dissidence, people with disabilities and children, leaving out various aspects of social security that are not summarized in pensions and retirements, which is what most of them are dedicated to. than 300 articles from this project”, warned Padula.
The mobilization coincided with the ruling party’s announcement that it will accept 11 changes to the text issued by the Senate, the majority proposed by the Colorado Party – a member of the ruling alliance – and accepted after the visit that the Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, made yesterday to the committees of Deputies.
Some modifications have to do with limiting investments abroad by fund managers, with prohibiting future governments from changing the retirement age without the approval of Congress, and with reducing the number of years of residence in the country required of migrants to be able to access to a pension.