Mobilisations on the 1st of December demanding decent pensions, working, and living conditions

This is the joint message from the convening trade unions:

Different organisations have agreed on a series of demands and they have started a joint mobilisation dynamic to achieve these. We are sharing the importance of the moment. The European Funds are turning into a Sword of Damocles, which is completely unacceptable. From the very beginning, it was clear that in exchange for them, Europe was going to demand steps to be taken regarding social adjustment and austerity budget policies. From here to the end of the year, they intend to make decisions that are going to determine our future working and living conditions. The passing of the labour reform and the pension reform are essential conditions without which the new Men in Black will not give the go-ahead for the second section of Fund transfers to the Spanish State. And in neither of the two cases are they responding to the demands made by Euskal Herria’s trade union and social movements.

In the pension reform bill, early retirements are being cut back and far from guaranteeing some minimum pensions of 1080 euros, or bringing an end to the gender gap, the little that is known points towards steps that will not repeal the cut backs imposed years ago, nor will they strengthen the public pension system. The content of the labour reform is an even greater incognito, but nothing is pointing towards the idea that it is going to guarantee our right to feely establish our bargaining agreements in Euskal Herria, nor to repeal the previous reforms on key aspects such as the ease of dismissal. We want to condition these reforms, and mobilisations are the route that we are going to follow to do this.

The institutions of Hego Euskal Herria do not want to hear any talk of changing the model on essential questions, such as health, education or the public care system, or to tackle an urgent tax reform, which would greatly increase the taxes to be paid on business income and capital, particularly, for the profits made by companies and for patrimony and large fortunes. Confebask and CEN are the institutions that mark out these policies.

The continuity of the miserly budgetary policies, the commitment to the privatisation of the public services and social benefits that they even intend to cut back (as occurs with the reform proposal of the GIR in the ACBC), the absence of steps to protect local businesses in crisis, show the refusal to rewrite everything learnt from the 2008 crisis and what has occurred with the coronavirus pandemic. Likewise, the management of the healthcare crisis has made the fragility of the autonomous system obvious: the State has the power to impose its criteria whenever it deems appropriate.

As we indicated, our commitment is to mobilisations. The trade union organisations that are behind this call consider it necessary to come together, as we have done when supporting the mobilisations of the 13th of November, convened by the Euskal Herria Pensioners’ Movement.

We have also been marking out the reference of a possible general strike, which we have talked about individually. Today, we are taking to the streets to say that in this context we see it necessary to convene a day of mobilisations on the 1st of December. On this day we are going to take to the streets; in the four capitals of Hego Euskal Herria in the morning and in the afternoon, the same will occur in the different regions, to defend our demands: 'Lan, pentsio eta bizi baldintza duinen alde. Lan eta pentsio erreformei ez. Bizi duin baterako burujabetza'.