The groups that make up the Workers’ Unitary Front (FUT) expect to accept the right to protest and take to the streets so that “the Government that is leaving in three or four months does not decide” on pensions. system of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS).

This was announced by the president of the FUT, José Villavicencio, a day after the commission established by the Government to prepare the proposal presented it to civil society to open a debate that seeks to give sustainability to social security.

Half of the reserve funds may not be monthly, and membership will be mandatory for freelancers, among the IESS reform proposals that are being discussed by citizens

Villavicencio assures that they are lying when they say that the reform proposal will not increase seniority or contributions and that pensions will not decrease, “because it is the opposite: today workers can retire with 30 years of service and 60 years of service. years and the proposal is to work 5 years more or 35 years more, so there is an increase in years, for that you don’t need to be a neoliberal economist, but it is a common sense analysis. Today, due to old age, one retires at 70 years of age and 10 years of service, and the reform proposes to have 15 years of service, if you work for another 5 years, your age will not be frozen, don’t lie to the workers, don’t lie to the pensioners”.

Another point that FUT refutes is that currently contributions are based on twelve months of the year and the proposal “proposes to contribute more: fourteen months taking into account the thirteenth and fourteenth salary. If you have a basic salary income, you have to contribute about $65 or $68 for two months, that’s about 130. Then there is an increase in contributions and a decrease in income for workers.”

The commission presented its proposal that the IESS pension system should live for another 50 years

Villavicencio also criticizes the limitation of the Unemployment Fund. “Not content with taking away 1% of unemployment insurance, the worker will no longer be able to withdraw unemployment when he is fired, only when he retires, but he will not get that accumulated unemployment insurance if he does not want to contribute it monthly and the message is that they get a better pension, that is, with their money, that’s why we qualified that this proposal is criminal for workers, for pensioners, for retirees”.

On behalf of the Ecuadorian Confederation of Unitary Class Workers’ Organizations (Cedocut), Mesías Tatamuez added that they will defend “heritage, because it is our heritage because we all aspire to be retired, all of us.” And he asked why the problem of lack of medicines is not covered.

This rejection of the reform proposal by the IESS has sparked warnings, with even the president of the FUT saying that if this reform plan goes ahead, “the same thing that is happening in France will happen”, alluding to the wave of protests that the country is facing. faces and who have become violent.