Pension reform: SUD Education responds to Rémy Rebeyrotte

Yes, let’s be serious Mr. Deputy

The SUD Education 21-71 union responds here to a column by MP Rebeyrotte, published on January 17 in Creusot Infos, in which he invites people to be serious about the pension reform project file.
The millions of people who demonstrated this Thursday, January 19 against this project, seem to have grasped the injustice of this reform and the lack of seriousness of those who demand it. So let’s come back, if it is still necessary, to some of the member’s arguments.

By a simplistic demographic reasoning, he advances the need for this reform to save our pension system over time. The Pensions Orientation Council, a service of the Prime Minister, on the contrary made various projections in its September 2022 report and none of them corresponds to a disaster scenario, and this until 2070. Its president has again said this Thursday, January 19: “Pension expenditure is not skidding, it is relatively under control, in most cases, it will rather decrease over time”.
There are obviously measures likely to strengthen the financing of our social system, without obliging the entire population to work for two more years. Bulk and choice:
• end of exemptions and reductions in employers’ social security contributions (it would ensure an annual inflow of 75 billion euros, 17 of which directly into pension funds)
• introduction of an additional employer social contribution equivalent to that of a full rate on part-time employment and a social contribution on dividends, allocated to the Social Security funds
• increase in employers’ social security contributions (0.8% additional contribution would ensure 12 billion euros more each year)
• true wage equality between women and men (the revaluation of the remuneration of feminized professions would bring in 14 billion euros annually to the pension funds according to the Caisse Nationale d’Assurance Vieillesse)
• increase in wages (which automatically increases the receipts of social security contributions)
• reduction of weekly working time to 32 hours without loss of salary or flexibility with a determined policy of job creation in public services (health, education, ecology, culture, etc.)
• restoration of the Solidarity Tax on Wealth, real fight against tax evasion, taxation of super-profits, etc.
Of course, these measures are part of a wealth sharing policy that is not the one implemented by the government, in the service of capitalist interests. The laborious attempt at “pedagogy” by Mr. Rebeyrotte is a very poor smoke-out that deceives no one: it is once again a question of saving money on the backs of workers confronted with the greatest risks.
Everyone will finally appreciate the “seriousness” with which the deputy concludes his remarks: “What surprised me, on the contrary, was the social dimension of the reform, its progress, its rebalancing towards more justice […] It would be a shame to miss out on such social advances. »
The notion of social progress here seems to be very misunderstood by the member. It should be remembered that it consists of changes in social organization with a view to improving the living conditions of all. The “box” is definitely “not checked” in the government’s project, to use the words of the deputy again.
SUD Education 21-71 therefore calls for the continuation and massive expansion of the fight against this anti-social project on the occasion of the next day of national mobilization on January 31 and during the various local actions that may be organized between now and then.