The government’s sudden announcement of plans to raise the retirement age has stirred strong opposition from a wide range of social actors, political parties and media. Given the progressive increase in the average age of Spain’s active population and the fall in social security contributions owing to the crisis, the government has come up with a package of measures aimed at reducing public spending. The proposals put forward include the raising of the pension age, cuts in employers’ social security contributions, a downward review of the criteria for access to retirement benefits and the levels received, and limits on the right to a widow’s pension.
Everyone should have the right to their retirement pension as of age 65 - if not before - as a well-earned rest at the end of their working life. The progressive increase of this limit would give rise to harmful health effects and a fall in living standards. Our organisation firmly supports this argument as an undeniable fact, as do all those who have spoken out against the government’s proposal. We, however, at the Confederal Youth Secretariat of Comisiones Obreras, would also like to draw attention to a series of collateral repercussions the adoption of this proposal would have on other population groups.
The difficulties young people have in accessing the labour market is a reality regularly reflected in the reports of the national statistics institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística). Numerous contractual formulas have been designed during previous legislatures in a bid to tackle this situation and there is a general consensus on the need for actions to promote generational turnover in access to the labour market. The figures provide clear evidence of the need to keep working in this direction, underlining the incoherence between these measures and an extension of working years, which would result in a worsening of the already diminished chances young people have of entering the labour market.
There is no doubt that the ageing of the Spanish population is a serious threat not only to the future system of state pensions but to all the social guarantees provided by our welfare state. In light of the above, it would be wiser to consider the causes of this phenomenon rather than rushing into patch up solutions. In addition, the late incorporation of young people into the labour market seriously limits the number of years during which they pay social security contributions. It is for this reason that we at the CCOO believe that the need for contributions to the system should not be tackled with a policy of spending cuts, but with proactive employment measures to increase the collection of social security contributions.
The emancipation of young people is directly proportional to the age at which they enter the labour market. If the retirement age is raised from 65 to 67, the young people of our country will not only take longer to achieve economic and social independence, they will also directly suffer from this rise in the pension age in the future: they will be vetoed at the beginning and penalised at the end of their working lives.
The Spanish government’s proposal is indisputably unjust and ill-advised; the arguments put forward are a clear display of this. The line of action we defend is based on measures such as increasing the cross-sector minimum wage, combating fraudulent and unjustified temporary contracts, and, above all, a youth employment policy that incorporates the growing mass of young unemployed into a labour market with decent conditions. This is the only route to ensuring a viable system of state pensions.
