Last February 20, Jair Bolsonaro personally went to the House of Representatives to deliver his project of destruction of the pensions of the Brazilian workers. The “pension reform”, long demanded by the market and fabricated by Paulo Guedes and his team of ultra-liberals, which even worse than the one Temer tried to pass in 2017 -defeated by popular mobilization.
Amongst the main points of the new proposal are the end of pensions for contributed time, the establishment of the minimum retirement age of 65 years for men and 62 years for women, with at least 20 years of contributions, the rising of the minimum age for of rural workers´ pensions -a category even more precarious- at 60 years for men and women, which is absurd since women still have a domestic workday. The proposal of the government also foresees that the workers must contribute for at least 40 years to have the right to an integral pension, pensions for death will be reduced to 60% of the pensions the deceased would have received and the value of pensions for those who have an accident or suffer from some kind of disability will be reduced to around 40%. These are only some of the points of this project, which is nothing more than a stab to the back of working people, specially for those who where deceived by the promises of “change” of Jair Bolsonaro. On the contrary to what the government and the bourgeois media says, there’s no deficit in the Previdencia (pension fund) and if there are not greater proceeds, it is because the governments that have occupied the Planalto Palace have given tax exemptions of over a billion dollars to the companies that should contribute to the Previndencia. This means that the government tries once again to force the poor to sustain the privileges of the rich.
Against these attacks there is only one way out: the mobilization of the workers, the women and the youth for a general strike. This is how we defeated the “reform” of Temer in 2017 and this must be the tone of the struggle against the government of Bolsonaro. On the contrary to what the bureaucracy of some unions sustain, there is no space for dialogue or negotiations, and it isn’t our task to present an “alternative” reform for the reactionary government and the market. On the same day the project was delivered to the House of Representatives, the main unions organized a unified assembly on the See Square in São Paulo. The event was attended by around 10 thousand people, but, unfortunately, they didn’t organize the continuation of the mobilization. That is a serious mistake, because the spokespeople of the government say that they want to pass the reform this semester. The unions and left parties that actually want to stop the dismantling of the Previdencia -mostly the PSOL- must come out of their immobility and the sterile institutional fight, and build a united front to organize the upcoming struggles, with assemblies across the country, strikes and the preparation of a great general strike.
Only with the mobilization of working people will it be possible to stop the pension reform and other attacks of the reactionary and corrupt government of Jair Bolsonaro.
- Not one less right!
- Down with the pension reform of Bolsonaro and Paulo Guedes!