THROUGHOUT Europe, strikes and demonstrations are gaining momentum, notes France’s CGT trade union federation.
Faced with inflation and the energy crisis, demonstrators demand wage increases and a change in the model of society.
In Spain, enough is enough!
In Spain, the sharp rise in fuel prices is at the origin of a strike by transport workers which caused major supply problems in the spring.
As air travel has rebounded after the Covid pandemic, low-cost airline flight attendants have also gone on strike. They are demanding a return to pre-Covid working conditions and the negotiation of a collective agreement.
In the UK, workers ‘demand better’.
In June, several industrial actions took place, followed by a majority strike which paralysed the country’s transport system.
In a context where more than one in eight workers say they face difficulties in paying for basic necessities, the movement has snowballed among postal workers, lawyers, dockers and teachers.
In Germany, government measures are not enough.
Demonstrators took to the streets in large numbers despite the government’s announcement, which promised 65 billion euros in early September to support household purchasing power in the face of soaring prices. They too are asking for wage increases.
Far-right recovery attempts
Everywhere the far right is at work and opportunistically arrogates to itself a social discourse boosted by nationalism, which risks dividing the world of work.
In Leipzig, Germany, for example, on September 5, people who wanted to demonstrate had to choose between two rallies organized on either side of the same square: one organized by the left-wing party Die Linke, the other by a far-right regional party.
In the Czech Republic, it is the extreme right which is largely the instigator of the movement ‘The Czech Republic first’, which protests against inflation by incriminating immigrants.
For the CGT, the trade union movement must fight against the powers in place but also against the extreme right.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which brings together most of the European trade union organisations, has decided on around fifteen mobilisations from 5 to 19 October.
Meanwhile in France, supplementary pension negotiations were being held on Thursday, October 6 between unions and MEDEF, with a board of directors of Agirc-Arrco, the compulsory private supplementary pension fund.
The CGT called for demonstrations in front of the headquarters of Agirc-Arrco in Paris where the level of increase in the retirement point should be decided.
The pension paid by the Agirc-Arrco (General Association of Pension Institutions for Executives Association for the supplementary scheme for employees) supplements the basic pension paid by the compulsory scheme.
It represents between 30 and 60% of the amount of the overall pension.
19.3 million employees contribute to Agirc-Arrco and 13.2 million retirees receive a supplementary pension.
Reductions for all
Each year, the Board of Directors of Agric-Arrco defines the level of pension for employees who exercise their right to retire in the following year.
Since 2011, according to figures from Agirc-Arrco, the average pension has decreased by 8.4% for workers and employees, and by 17.9% for engineers and executives.
Faced with galloping inflation which should reach 8% by the end of the year, the recent 4% increase in the general system is not enough to stem the decline in the living standrds of retirees.
Fewer points acquired for the same salary
Each year, the employee obtains points for his retirement according to the amount of his salary. It is only when he asserts his right to retirement that he knows the amount of it. The trend is as follows: fewer points acquired for the same salary.
In concrete terms, a report from the Pensions Orientation Council (Cor) stessed – ‘a contributor acquires practically half the 2018 rights to Arrco than he acquired in 1973 with the same euros of contribution.’
For the CGT, it is necessary to revalue pensions to 6.2%, and to change the method of calculating supplementary pensions. This is possible insofar as Agirc-Arrco generated significant surpluses in 2021 and its reserves are abundant.
Impact of the implementation of solidarity coefficients at AGIRC-ARRCO
Since 2017 (Articles 98 and 99 of the ANI of 17/11/0217), the application of a lowering coefficient (or deferredd bonus reduction) causes the replacement rate to fall (between 2% and 4% depending on the profile of the pensioner) for new pensioners born from 1957 and who liquidate their pension less than four quarters after obtaining the full rate of the general scheme.
In 2020, nearly 442,921 new retirees from the AGIRC ARRCO scheme were potentially affected by these coefficients.
A joint press release on Tuesday, 4 October from the trade unions CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE CGC, CFTC, Solidaires, FSU, UNEF, the voice of high school students, FAGE, FIDL and MNL, stated: ‘The inter-union, meeting on October 3 in Bagnolet, took note of the government’s desire to open consultations concerning our pension system.
‘The government must specify its intentions, its elements of diagnosis, the consultation method and its objectives.
Attached to the pay-as-you-go system, the trade unions say they are open to conducting consultations which are fair and transparent for greater social justice.
These should relate to:
- long career schemes;
- hardship and wear and tear at work;
- employment retirement transition and end of career;
- employment of seniors, minimum pension;
- plan funding;
- and gender equality.
On these issues, the trade union organisations will work together to make common demands.
The trade union organisations reaffirm that all of these subjects do not require parametric reform.
The trade unions thus reaffirm that they are – like the majority of the population – firmly opposed to any extension of the legal retirement age and an increase in the contribution period.
For the intersyndicale, alternatives, exist, including financial ones, and must be discussed.
In this context, our trade unions point out that one out of two employees reaching retirement age is no longer working (disability, unemployment, social minima, etc.).
Thus, any age measures would only make current and future workers even more precarious.
This would also generate no savings for our system because it would lead to a financial transfer to unemployment insurance and for disability and social minima, to our social protection system.
Our organisations call on current and future workers to meet and debate, and will not hesitate to build all the necessary means of action if the government remains steadfast on its project.
In this context of uncertainty for the workers, the inter-union decided to meet again in October.
Bagnolet, October 4, 2022
