Negotiations on the pension reform have been prolonged and should be closed from December. UGT leader Pepe Alvarez announced that the union is demanding that the Ministry of Social Security promote retirement affordability by requiring lower annual contributions and further decriminalizing early withdrawal of pensions. work career.
Álvarez confirmed that the reform “must be balanced”, so if the ministry wants to extend the pension calculation period, “we have to talk about everything”, confirmed the Secretary General of the UGT.
The proposal unveiled by Pepe Alvarez this Monday includes reducing the 15-year contribution requirement to access the consular pension. In particular, he explained that the union plans to reduce this requirement “in three years” to move it to “12 years of contributions”.
Alvarez warned that Spain has stricter criteria in this regard than EU countries, which is why he called for the issue to be “balanced” if Europe is to set an example on other issues.
In addition, UG-T requests the abolition of the requirement that an employee make contributions for the last 15 years of his working career within 2 years before retirement. “It’s a question of fairness,” said Pepe Alvarez, who called it “almost a fraud” that two years are required at the end of a working career, in addition to the 15-year contribution period.
A long working career
The second new element that Pepe Alvarez has put on the table is the further decriminalization of early retirement for long careers.
The leader of the Yu-Gi-T demanded the improvement of the conditions of early retirement for the group of workers with many years of work, even with lower penalties than those imposed in the first block of the pension reform.
In addition, UGT requires the expansion of the group itself, which can benefit from this measure. The union is proposing that all people with more than 40 years of service be eligible.
The Ministry of Social Security does not confirm whether these issues are being discussed at the social dialogue table, as claimed by Yu-Gi. “We are trying to reach an agreement as soon as possible and we are not going to discuss the specific details of the negotiations. We always listen to all proposals, but we are not going to evaluate them publicly”, they answer from the Department of Jose Luis Escriva.
The government was supposed to wrap up the reform in December as part of a recovery plan it had promised in Brussels, but was delayed due to a lack of agreement. So far, the ministry of José Luis Escriva has not achieved a social or political consensus to advance the norm.
Source: El Diario
