‘WHILE more than 2 million of us took to the streets on January 19th, a new day of inter-union mobilisation is scheduled for Tuesday January 31,’ the giant French trade union, the CGT, has announced.
‘General assemblies of employees, in different professional sectors, are now debating the continuation of the strike, including renewed action, not only for pensions but also for wages and working conditions.
‘The CGT also carries its proposals for improving our solidarity pension system with a return of the legal retirement age to 60 at full rate and, before age 60, for difficult jobs.
‘These proposals are easily financeable and require an increase in social protection receipts.
‘A real employment policy, the transition to 32 hours, the increase in wages, the maintenance of employees in employment until the age of 60, the reduction of inequalities between women and men would bring in the billions of euros necessary for social progress.
‘Despite the strong mobilisation of the world of work on January 19, the government continues to ‘‘explain and justify’’ its reform.
‘The CGT therefore invites its professional and territorial organisations and its unions to continue to broaden the mobilisation in companies, services and places of life to debate its proposals with employees and private individuals in employment, young people and retirees.
‘The CGT invites all workers to massively sign the inter-union petition against the pension reform on change.org.
‘The CGT calls on employees to participate in all the local initiatives proposed by our organisations and to make January 31 a strong day of strikes and mobilisations, to demand that the government abandon its reform of pensions, but also to demand a pension reform that brings social progress.
‘We are united and determined to have this pension reform project withdrawn.’
The CGT ‘deciphers why the pension reform must be withdrawn by the government’.
‘The pension reform project is an aberration on several counts and we explain to you how we dismantle the government’s arguments one by one.
‘Will the 2023 reform project preserve the pay-as-you-go pension system?
‘It’s wrong!
‘If the government does not touch the name, the specificities of the French pension system imagined in 1946 are abandoned.
‘At the time, the ambition was to make retirement a new stage in life. With the solidarity financing system based on contributions, everyone paid according to their means and received according to their needs.
‘Today, pushing back the legal retirement age and increasing the number of quarters necessary to receive a full pension, push employees to finance themselves (for those who can) their own retirement.
‘The least well-off employees (low salary, period of unemployment, precarious contracts, illness, etc.) will be condemned to precariousness and charity … as before the creation of the pension system!
‘For the CGT, the system must be strengthened to improve pension rights and finance them.
‘As life expectancy increases, working longer will not have an impact on the number of years spent in retirement?
‘It’s wrong!
‘While life expectancy is increasing, the French are spending less time in retirement due to previous reforms. For example, the Sarkozy reform reduced the average pension by one year. It was 26 years for the generation born in 1950, it is now 24.6 for the 1970 generation and would increase to 23.1 years with retirement at age 65.
‘In addition, life expectancy varies according to income level. Men whose living conditions are the most modest live, on average, 13 years less than the wealthiest.
‘In any case, we are more likely to age in good health when we retire earlier than when we are forced to continue working.
‘Only the extension of working hours can financially balance the French pension system?
‘It’s wrong!
‘In 2021 and 2022, the pension funds were in surplus by 900 million euros and 3.2 billion euros respectively.
‘According to the COR, the pension system could again become in deficit until 2032, emphasising that there is no uncontrolled spending. Expenditure would be globally stable until 2027 (between 13.8% and 13.9% of GDP), then would increase until 2032 (14.2 and 14.7% of GDP) before stabilising or decreasing from 2032.
‘In the long term (by 2070), the share of pension expenditure in GDP would be between 14.7% (which is the case today) and 12.1% again according to the COR.
‘In summary, in the absence of reform, the pension system is not financially in danger. It is the planned decline in revenue that weakens the system.
‘Should the legal retirement age be pushed back so as not to lower pensions?
‘It’s wrong!
‘This measure does not guarantee the maintenance of the level of pensions because it is accompanied by the gradual extension of the contribution period. You will have to wait 65 years to leave AND contribute more quarters to receive a full pension.
‘This measure, combined with the increase in the age of entry into the labour market and the increase in the number of incomplete careers, would push more and more future retirees to work beyond the age of 65 so as not to see their pension reduced in reason for the discount.
‘With a little less than half of the over 60s excluded from the labour market before retirement, pushing back the retirement age means increasing the number of seniors on disability, long-term illness, unemployment and plunging them even further little more in precariousness.
‘Would this reform be fairer for small pensions?
‘It’s wrong!
‘The government displays the promise of a minimum pension of 1,200 euros gross, but fails to specify that it is for a full career.
‘This is below the minimum pension voted in 2003 which already provided for a minimum of 85% of the minimum wage but was never applied. Not only will this only concern future retirees, but this amount is barely above the poverty line!
‘For the CGT no retirement should be lower than the minimum wage for a full career!
‘For all these reasons and many more, we call for a day of inter-union mobilisation on Tuesday, January 31 across the country.’
The CGT has also condemned a new attack on the unemployed.
It says: ‘The government is seeking by all means to reduce the rights of Active Solidarity Income (RSA) recipients.
‘The implementation of “France Travail” scheduled for 2023 will in particular affect the management and compensation of the RSA.
‘In this context, the government is launching an experiment aimed at making the payment of the RSA conditional on the work of recipients in 18 departments or communities.’
‘“France Travail” seems like a technocratic and liberal dream that claims to work miracles with fully digitised access, to the detriment of proximity and the most vulnerable audiences,’ notes Denis Gravouil, secretary general of the FNSAC.
‘The experiment consists of conditioning the payment of the RSA on the compulsory completion of 15 to 20 hours of weekly activities. In the event of non-compliance with this condition of activity, the beneficiaries may see their allowances reduced or even eliminated.
‘“The activities carried out may be of all types”, so it is to be feared that they will only be carried out within companies and communities, without offering real access to training for the recipients.
‘Rather than hiring territorial agents, the communities concerned will therefore be able to rely on the free work of RSA recipients, or worse still, companies could take advantage of public funding (through taxes) from the RSA to obtain labour free work,’ denounces Denis Gravouil.
‘Registration with Pôle emploi (employment centre) will be systematic for participants in the experiment.
‘This is to forget that currently only 40% of people with the RSA are registered there. The remaining part represents people in very precarious situations (disabilities, elderly people without pensions, etc.).’
CGT continued: ‘Everyone will then have to sign a contract of engagement specifying the content of the 15 to 20 hours of weekly activities and will be appointed a referent adviser.
‘Pôle Emploi employees already deplore a lack of human and financial resources, it seems unlikely that this system will allow better monitoring … This reform without means, to generate savings, is far from lifting the brakes on the resumption of employment, yet identified (problems with childcare, transport costs, etc.).
‘Centralisation at Pôle Emploi transformed into “France Travail” which would control the distribution of users’ personal and digital data to other operators (local missions, APEC, Agefiph, various private service companies, etc.) would increase their competition with private operators.
‘Finally, what will be the use of sanctions taken against the unemployed and against RSA recipients?’
