Representatives of the workers’ union organizations initiated protest actions against what they consider could lead to an eventual privatization of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS), and in against the presence of the current member of the workers in the Board of Directors of the entity, Richard Gómez.
Nelson Erazo, president of the Popular Front, explained that several actions were carried out on Thursday, including road closures and protests outside the buildings of the Zarzuela building in Quito and the Caja del Seguro in Guayaquil. There were several protests in various sectors of the province of Carchi and in cities like Ibarra, Portoviejo, Quevedo, Machala, Santo Domingo, he said. In addition, in the coming days they will resort to other instances of justice so that the Superintendency of Banks complies with the law and separates Gómez from the Board of Directors, since they maintain that he would not meet the requirements to be a member nor that he was not regularly named.
Erazo rejected the Government’s policy on Social Security, beginning for the appointment of an Interdisciplinary Commission for the Preparation of a reform project of the IVM Pension System, which he described as neoliberal. He said that it is not up to the Government to get involved in the issue of the IESS, because it is an autonomous entity. He also indicated that the appointed commission will seek to privatize the administration of the IESS, as it has already done with medicines that are no longer given in the IESS itself, but in private pharmacies. He also rejected a possibility – still under analysis – of creating two insurances, one for old affiliates and one for new ones.
He believes that what this commission will seek will be to increase the years for retirement or increase contributions. However, for Erazo, the solutions are different:
- The entity must be directed by the workers.
- A payment plan must be required for the State to catch up on its debts
- Private employers must also pay $2 billion owed by the IESS.
- Generate or establish productive mechanisms that generate jobs.
On the other hand, the Andean parliamentarian Cristina Reyes (formerly of the PSC) filed, as a citizen affiliated with the IESS, a protection action against the presence of Richard Gómez on the Board of Directors of the IESS.
Reyes said that the action presented maintains that workers’ rights are being violated by having arbitrarily placed a person who has neither professional credentials nor integrity to hold the position as their representative. He recalled that Gómez is on the Board of Directors of the IESS due to a decision by a judge in Quevedo who did not take into account whether or not Gómez represented the workers, nor whether he met the requirements.
In the protection action, it is requested that the violation of rights is declared, the qualification acts of the Superintendency of Banks are suspended and the administrative acts of the IESS that led to Gómez occupying the position are challenged.
Meanwhile, Reyes was opposed to raising the contributions or the years of retirement in the IESS. She believes that no one will accept that possibility, especially with so much corruption and poor services. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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