The Movement of Pensioners of Euskal Herria calls to “fill the streets” on January 15

The Euskal Herria Pensioners Movement has called for “fill the streets” of the Basque capitals next January 15, the fourth anniversary of the start of their mobilizations, to denounce the loss of purchasing power and misery pensions that the latest labor reform brings, as well as the “collapse” that the sixth wave of the pandemic has meant for public health services.

In its usual Monday rallies, the group told attendees that the movement is striving to explain to pensioners and all citizens the importance of filling the streets on January 15 because it is “a unique opportunity” for them to pensioners, workers, unions, social organizations and youth, “who suffer in a generalized way precariousness and low wages, let us support each other in their respective demands.”

The group has agreed with the “Basque trade union majority” in the need for broader, unitary and coordinated mobilizations, both in the factories and in the streets to reach governments and employers that “We are not willing to swallow cuts in pensions, wages and other social rights”.

In this sense, they have criticized that, in their opinion, the reform “consolidates the deterioration of the public pension system with the aim of reducing it to a welfare level and thus favoring private pension systems.”

Likewise, the Pensioners’ Movement has criticized the situation of “collapse” in which the health systems of Euskadi and Navarra find themselves, Osakidetza and Osasunbidea, respectively.

The group has defended “protesting and with force” so that the institutions of both autonomous communities put a “brake” on the “collapse” of their public health services due to the increase in infections in this sixth wave and adopt “economic investment measures at once in healthcare facilities and templates “.

From their point of view, this latest wave of the pandemic caused by the Omicron variant has done nothing but “accentuate problems that come from afar “both in residences, primary care or hospitals. Some problems that public institutions “have not been able to solve efficiently, largely due to the reduction of resources, human and material, originated by their own policies.”

Basque pensioners have pointed out that, instead of recovering the nearly 4,000 health professionals “who got rid of in October, it has only rehired less than 1,000”, which has caused “a collapse in all public health , that many people go to take private insurance or to take antigen tests or PCRs, to private clinics that are being lined with scandalous prices “.

Basque pensioners believe that “It can not go on like this” and, therefore, considers it necessary “to protest and forcefully, in an open, unitary, plural and respectful way so that the institutions take urgent measures to put a stop to this situation.”