THE COLLAPSE OF SOCIAL SECURITY: THE FRENCH WORKERS FACING THE PROGRAM neoliberal policies
"Working more to earn less" Rage in the cage French EU
OF DIANA JOHNSTONE
globalresearch . ca
The French are again on strike, are blocking the transport, unleash hell on the streets and everything just because the government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 years. They must be crazy.
This, I suppose, is the way it is seen that the mass movement under way in France, or at least has shown, much of the world, and especially in Anglo-Saxon world. Perhaps the first thing that needs to be said about the mass strikes is that they are not really about "raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 years." This is a bit like describing the capitalist free market as a sort of lemonade stand. Simplification propaganda on very complex issues. Allows commenters to break through an open door. After all, they wisely observed, people in other countries are working up to 65 or more years, so why discourage the French at 62? The population is aging, and if the retirement age is not made up, the pension system will be ruined in the payment of pensions to so many elderly. However, the current protest movement is not about "raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 years." It is much more. First, this movement is an expression of exasperation with the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, who clearly favors the super-rich than the Most people who live in this country. E 'was elected with the slogan "Work more to earn more," and the reality has turned into work harder to earn less. The Minister of Labour, which introduced the reform, Eric Woerth, got a job for his wife in the office of staff of France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the cosmetics giant L'Oreal, when, as Budget Minister, was flying on his massive tax evasion. While the tax benefits to help drain the public coffers of the rich, this government is doing everything possible to bring down the entire social security system that emerged after the Second World War, under the pretext that "we can not afford it." The issue of retirement is much more complex "retirement age". The statutory retirement age means the age at which you can retire. But the pension depends on the number of years of work, or to be more precise, the number of contributions (payments) in the pension scheme. For the sake of "saving the system from bankruptcy, the government is gradually raising the number of years of contributions from 40 to 43 years, with indications that these will increase further in the future. So while education continues and jobs will start later, for a full pension most people will have to work until 65 or 67 years. A full board would be approximately 40% of wages at retirement. But even so, this may not be possible. The full-time jobs are harder and harder to obtain, and employers do not necessarily want to retain older employees. Or the company goes out of business and an employee of 58 years finds himself permanently out of work. It is becoming increasingly difficult to work full time in the paid workforce of more than 40 years, however much we decide to want it. So, in practice, Sarkozy, Woerth reform simply means the reduction of pensions. That, in fact, is what the European Union has recommended that all its member states, such as economic measure designed, like most of the current reforms to reduce the social costs in the name of "competitiveness", which means competition to attract investment capital. The low-skilled workers, which, instead of continuing his studies, entered the world of work by young, say eighteen years of age, join a scheme for 42 years until age 60 if they really succeed in being used for all this time. Statistics show that their expectation life is relatively short, therefore they need to abandon the first to enjoy any retirement. The French system is based on solidarity between generations, as workers' contributions to today go to pay the pensions of today. The government has subtly tried to put one generation against another, claiming that it is necessary to safeguard the future of young people today, they are paying for retirement "baby boom". E 'therefore highly significant that this week's high school and college students have begun to enter the massive strikes in protest movement. This generational solidarity is a blow to the government.
Young people are also more radical than are the older trade unionists. I am very aware of the growing difficulties in building a career. The tendency for qualified personnel is to enter the world of work later and later, after years of receiving an education. With the difficulty of finding a stable job full-time, many are dependent on their parents until the age of 30 years. It 's the simple arithmetic shows that, in this case, there will be no full board up to more than 70 years.
Productivity and deindustrialization
As has become standard practice, the authors of the reforms the neo-liberals do not have a choice but a necessity. There is no alternative. We must compete on the global market. We must do this or we will go to ruin. And this reform was primarily driven by the European Union, in a 2003 report which concluded that, as people worked longer, it was necessary to cut pension costs. These dictates prevent any discussion of two key factors driving the pension problem: productivity and industrialization. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, that the former Socialist Party that leads the relatively new Left Party, is virtually the only leader to point out that, although there are fewer workers contributing to pension schemes, the difference may be the growth of productivity. In fact, the productivity of French workers is among the highest in the world (higher than Germany, for example). Moreover, even if France has the second highest life expectancy in Europe, also has the highest birth rate. And even if employees are less, because of unemployment, the wealth they produce should be sufficient to maintain their levels of pension. Ah, but here's the catch: for decades, while productivity was rising, wages stagnant. The profit increase productivity was hijacked in the financial sector. The bubble in the financial sector and the stagnation of purchasing power have led to the financial crisis and the government has preserved the imbalance through the rescue of the dissolute financiers.
So, logically, the maintenance of the pension system basically requires the increase in wages to take account of increased productivity, a very important policy change. But there is another crucial problem related to the issue of pensions: the de-industrialization. In order to maintain high profits drained from the financial sector, and avoid paying higher wages, an industry after another has moved its production in countries with low labor costs. Profitable enterprises closed, while the funds were in search of profits even higher. And 'this merely the inevitable result of the birth of new industry trends in Asia? And 'This is an inevitable lowering of standards of living in the West due to its origin in the East? Maybe. However, if you move production to China, you end up lowering the purchasing power in the West, and then Chinese exports will suffer. China is taking the first steps towards strengthening the internal market porprio. The "growth led by exports" can not be a strategy for everyone. Prosperity world really depends on strengthening both the domestic production of domestic markets. But this requires some sort of deliberate industrial policy has been banned by the bureaucrats of globalization: the World Trade Organization and the European Union. They work with the tenets of "comparative advantage" and "free competition". For the sake of free markets, China is actually faced with sanctions for the promotion of its solar energy industry, vitally needed to put an end to air pollution that afflicts this country. The world economy is treated as a big game, where you follow the "rules of the free market" is more important to the environment or the basic needs of human beings. Only the financiers can win this game. And if they lose, well, they get even more firm by the governments subservient to another game.
Impasse?
Where will it all end?
You should end up in something like a democratic revolution: a comprehensive review of economic policy. But there are many solid reasons why this will not happen. First, there is no political leadership in France is ready and able to bring a truly radical movement. Mélenchon is what comes closest, but his party is new and its base is still narrow. The radical left is paralyzed by his chronic sectarianism. And there is great confusion among the people in revolt without clear plans and leaders. The labor leaders are fully aware that employees are losing a day's wage for each day that go on strike and, in fact, are always eager to find a way to end the strike. Only students do not suffer from this situation. Trade unionists and Socialist Party leaders do not ask for anything more drastic than that of opening negotiations on the details of the reform. If Sarkozy were not so stubborn, this is a concession that the government could do and could restore calm without changing much. It would take a miraculous birth new leaders to bring the movement forward. But even if that happens, there is a formidable obstacle to a fundamental change: the European Union. The EU was built on the dreams of a peaceful and prosperous united Europe, has become a mechanism for social and economic control of the capital and, in particular, the financial capital. It is also linked to a powerful military alliance, NATO. If left to itself, France would experience in the economic system more just and socially. But the EU is there to prevent just such experiments.
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
On 19 October, the international television channel France 24 sent a discussion of non-French strikes between 4 observers. The Portuguese woman and Indian man seemed they were trying, with some success, to understand what was happening. On the contrary, both Anglo-American (the Paris correspondent of Time magazine and Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French) you enjoyed the show 's self-complacent inability to understand the country they write for a living. Their simple and quick explanation: "The French are always on strike because they like it."
A little later in the program the presenter showed a short interview with a high school student who provided comments on the serious issue of pensions. Perhaps it would reflect the Anglo-Saxons? The response was instantaneous: "How sad to see a 18 year old to think about pensions when they should think about the girls!" So, whether you do it for fun, or whether they do so instead of fun, to the Anglo-Americans, used to tell the world what they should do, the French are ridiculous.
Original version:
Diana Johnstone
Source: http://globalresearch.ca
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