PADS supports workers' demand for retirement

The statement said:

"In a context marked by the continued deterioration of social conditions, the rising cost of living, job insecurity, and the erosion of social gains, the demand to reinstate retirement after 32 years of actual work expresses a legitimate aspiration among workers to defend their dignity and rights. This demand cannot be reduced to a simple administrative or technical issue related to the retirement age. It points more profoundly to the economic and political choices imposed for decades in service of the interests of capital and the ruling classes.

The reinstatement of retirement after 32 years of work must also be placed in its historical context. Retirement schemes without age restrictions and proportional pensions were introduced during the period of structural adjustment programs imposed under the dominance of neoliberal policies and the interests of capital. They were primarily aimed at managing the social consequences of economic restructuring, privatizations, and the dismantling of parts of the national public sector. Hundreds of thousands of workers paid the price for these policies through layoffs, company closures, and massive cutbacks. The ruling bourgeoisie used these schemes to facilitate job destruction and defuse the social anger provoked by the attack on workers' rights.

(...) But when this same system began to be seen as contrary to the interests of capital and the profitability demands of the bourgeoisie, the authorities abolished it without hesitation. The elimination of retirement after 32 years of work, which came into effect on January 1, 2017, clearly demonstrates that, in the current system, social gains remain fragile as long as workers lack an organized and independent balance of power. This social regression also reflects the weakness of the organized labor movement and the dependence of union leadership on the government and the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Workers' rights cannot depend on the goodwill of the ruling classes. The bourgeoisie may concede certain gains when they temporarily serve its interests, then roll them back as soon as they become incompatible with profit accumulation. This reality confirms the class nature of the state and of power, which are primarily subject to the interests of capital.

(...) The PADS claims:

• The revision of pension legislation to ensure a real indexation of pensions to changes in the cost of living and purchasing power;
• Towards the unification of the various pension funds into a single national system, public and solidarity-based, guaranteeing the same rights to all workers;
• Against the privileges granted to senior executives and the ruling classes to the detriment of workers;
• For a retirement system based on social equality and class solidarity: no 100% pensions for senior executives while workers suffer reduced and insufficient pensions; increasing the lowest pensions in order to guarantee a dignified life for retirees;

The state and successive governments serve the interests of major economic powers at the expense of the people's needs. Workers must harbor no illusions about the promises of the parties managing the system, nor about the union apparatuses integrated into the power structure and the logic of social partnership.

The only path favorable to workers is that of independent organization, class unity, and collective struggle.

The PADS is calling for:

• To strengthen the organization of workers in all workplaces;
• To the development of a class-based trade union movement, combative and independent of employers and the State;
• To the unity of public and private sector workers, the unemployed and working-class youth;
• To strengthen the political and class consciousness of workers.

The fight for retirement after 32 years is part of the general struggle against unemployment, job insecurity, low wages and capitalist exploitation.