The labor union will first seek the support of unionized workers, and then begin with neighborhoods and activities for all Uruguayans.
He PIT-CNT today launched its campaign to collect signatures to achieve the plebiscite against social security reform in Uruguay. Under the motto “Affirm your rights”, the union center will seek to reach the 270,000 signatures necessary to enable the popular consultation, which already has the support of some sectors of the Broad Front.
For Marcelo Abdala, the president of PIT-CNT, The initiative will manage to gather almost double the necessary signatures, that is, it could reach 500,000, despite the rejection that a constitutional reform has generated in various sectors, not only the national government. According to what the leader said at a press conference, it is a campaign “in defense of the basic rights of the population” because “it is not good for a society to get used to having to work all its life.”
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In search of union support
Abdala explained that the center’s strategy is to seek primary dialogue and adhesion of the unionized workers and then they will begin with the neighborhoods and activities to reach a broader universe of Uruguayans.
Likewise, he denounced that those who support the plebiscite have “suffered a barrage of voices that appeal to fear”, and reiterated that “here there was a brutal adjustment against the great majorities of the working people” with the social security reform which was approved with the votes of the government coalition months ago.
For this very reason, the PIT-CNT will seek to establish through the reform of the Constitution a “basic retirement age of 60 years, a minimum retirement amount linked to the national minimum wage and eradicating financial profit from the social security sphere,” eliminating Pension Savings Fund Administrators (AFAP).
For its part, Nathalie Barbé, of the Association of Social Security Workers (ATSS)said in the same press conference that the ballot “was worked very seriously” and “does not have any type of legal hole.”
According to the leader, the idea of the reform is to “give a little dignity to the passive who today are living in misery or on the edge of it.”
In this sense, he said that if the reform is approved they will return to Social Security Bank (BPS) “more of 1.28 billion dollars that are transferred annually to the AFAP.” “We will be able to sustain both the increase in retirements and any other improvement that can be made tomorrow,” said Barbé.
Subsequently, Abdala was the first to sign the ballot for the plebiscite, and his colleagues at the table followed him.
Source: Ambito
