Another attack on women. The Government wants to convert 4 million moratorium retirements into social plans

This Wednesday, some media outlets spread the news that Milei’s government is analyzing a new attack on retirees, through a transformation of pension moratoriums into social plans. Looking for degrade thus its pension content to consider it a “subsidy” and thereby cut the amounts perceived, rights that correspond to their holders and probably decoupling them from the quarterly adjustments by mobility.

This plan is a direct application of the guidelines of the FMI and the international credit organizations that disapprove of this type of mechanisms to recognition of contributions such as moratoriums and consider them “non-contributory” benefits.

According to official data, today there are some 4 million retirements and pensions that were granted by moratorium, which are received by more than 3.6 million headlines. He 75% are received by women. Likewise, in the coming years the 90% of women could not access an ordinary retirement because it does not meet the 30 years of contributions required by the system, so the only way to retire is via moratorium.

The story liberalof which the Government is a supporter but not only in the environment of mercy but also adopted by much of the political arc (both from Macrismo, from the PRO, and from sectors of Peronism), insists that moratoriums are an “injustice” to the system because a pension is granted to people who “did not contribute.” Completely false.

These are workers who They contributed to society all their lives working, but they are invisible to public records. If people about to retire today cannot do so and need a moratorium, It was not by choice, it is because of having worked informally or having been unemployed during certain periods..

In the vast majority, it is also because they have carried out tasks such as cleaning, cooking, caring for children, the sick and the elderly, etc. tasks mainly made by women that were not recognized or remunerated, but they play a fundamental role in the reproduction of the workforce. Those women They do not have contributions not because they have not wanted to, but because of a patriarchal capitalist system that does not recognize this unpaid work..

Besides, The pension system is financed largely, and increasingly, with tax resourceswhich today fall mainly to consumption and in regressive on lower income sectors. Consumption that these people have made, providing resources to the system and yet today they will not be able to see any remuneration for it.

However, moratoriums are not the solution to growing job insecurity and the problems in the world of work. They depend on Congress approving new moratoriums every 2 or 3 years and in addition this mechanism puts the burden on the worker, who is made to pay with a discount on his or her credit for something that is not actually his or her responsibility but that of the companies themselves. companies that defrauded him and that did not pay his retirement contributions. Even this discount was hidden behind the lower salaries received for not being registered.

Along with the discussion of how to defend pension moratoriums, it is necessary to fight to increase the resources of the system falling on big capital and the restitution of employer contributions from before Cavallo reduced them, how to apply true labor laundering, how to recompose the assets and restore 82% mobileamong other urgent problems.

For its part, a modification like the one that the Government would seek, necessarily requires approval by Congress, given that previous moratoriums were ordered by parliamentary laws. And above all, you will have to pass the street test. Women and diversities They are preparing a great day of struggle for International Women’s Day for this March 8to demand the recognition of unpaid work and all the rights of women, and fight for a system without exploitation or oppression.

Thanks to the Milei’s “inflationary blender”, the adjustment fell mainly on pensions and salaries. Only in the first 3 months of the Government, salaries fell by close to 30% in real values.

The debate cannot be exhausted between miserable retirements, division between first- and second-class retirees, or no retirement at all.but on how to guarantee that at least the needs of retirees are met.