Last Saturday, October 15, the General Confederation of Labor supported a large demonstration in Madrid, which was widely followed by the pension movement, class unionism and numerous social movements, to defend wages, pensions, decent work and public services. In the Canary Islands, the call was on the same day, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from San Telmo Park to the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, passing through the Delegation of the Government of Spain and in Tenerife in Plaza Weyler, to remind them that in the Canary Islands we also demand a decent salary and pensions.
The mobilization where the Canary Islands was represented by the Association for the Defense of Public Pensions of the Canary Islands has been the first of a cycle of actions that these groups and trade union and social organizations intend to launch this fall, in order to end the policies of cuts and reforms against the interests of the working class.
Pensioners and workers have denounced the loss of social rights, freedoms, cuts in public services, wages and pensions since the beginning of the 2008 crisis. In addition, during the Covid-19 pandemic it was found that due to this process of looting and privatization, the capacity to respond to the virus and its consequences was diminished.
Pensioners and workers have pointed out that pension cuts have also caused them to lose purchasing power, and while IBEX 35 companies obtain millionaire profits and the CPI has risen by 10.5%, wages and pensions have risen by 2.4% and 2.5% respectively.
The greed of a few cannot continue to condemn the vast majority of human beings to misery. The working class is at its limit, but the situation of women is even worse. They are the ones who suffer the wage gap, the ones who chain a greater number of precarious contracts and the ones who continue to take care of the care to a greater extent, to then reach retirement age and obtain much smaller payments than those of their partners.
The struggle for the right to decent pensions has to involve young people in its first line, the generations that are going to have the worst of it in a few years. Extending the retirement age, keeping people of almost 70 years old working, prevents young people from accessing the labor market and continues to maintain more precarious jobs, incompatible with the development of a decent life.
We believe that another distribution of wealth is possible, so that really no one has a very difficult time surviving without giving their lives in that attempt.
We demand to increase wages and pensions according to the real CPI and that the minimum pension is equal to the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (currently, 1,000 euros per month), as well as that the voluntary early retirement with long contribution careers is not penalized, to end the gender gap that is still at 35%, to guarantee a decent and stable job in the face of job insecurity, to put an end to the cuts and privatization of the public, to defend health (in the Canary Islands we demand the total elimination of waiting lists, both for dependency and to receive a non-contributory pension) and defense of public services, to repeal the Gag Law and guarantee social rights such as housing, dependency, education and health. In other words, it is about preventing the crisis-scams of financial power from being paid again by the usual ones and moving towards social transformation.
¡¡ WHOEVER GOVERNS, PENSIONS, WAGES AND SOCIAL SERVICES ARE DEFENDED!!
*Member of the Canal Gestión company committee representing the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).
