- After two years and ten months concentrated pensioners in Bilbao every Monday, the Spanish Government has recently announced a 0.9% increase in retirement pensions. From the point of view of the most important entrepreneurs, the red measure in every sense.
However, since the crisis, the CPI (Index of Consumer Prices or CPI in Spanish), an index that analyzes the shopping basket of products and services to meet basic needs, has risen by 17.5%, according to data produced by Eustat. In other words, in the Basque Autonomous Community, even considering the rise in the pensions of the Government of Pedro Sánchez, a pensioner will have to pay 16.6% more than in 2008 in order to live in dignity. As regards the data, the red measure, in red leather. That is what the thousands of people in Hego Euskal Herria may think have decided to maintain the call for a general strike for this year.
Is it not true that there are alternatives?To deal with the bad state you would need red policies; and colors, they are a matter of taste
In addition, economists have already announced the imminent arrival of a new global crisis, the most important one in history. This red and uninterrupted era, in addition to the adult population, has drawn in red the movements of different colors that propagate in other collectives and that put on the table the rupture with capitalism; purple feminism, green environmentalism or black antiracism. Thus, the Charter of Social Rights of the Basque Country, composed of 145 unions and social agents, has joined the pensioners by calling for a general strike.
A qualitative leap was made to the demand for a minimum pension of EUR 1,080 and a union of forces of different claims was created, which took place today. Among other requirements, the following: Retirement age 65, minimum wage of 1,200 euros, working hours of 35 hours per week, guarantee of social rights or suspension of the current labour reform. The CCOO and UGT trade unions, which signed the latter, did not join this year’s call for a general strike.
In this regard, the Basque and Navarro governments also took the position of diverting the proposals from the protest to Madrid. But in the Basque Country, the competences of local institutions show that to end the gender gap or administrative temporality, you can create a law that involves a minimum wage or a supplement to pensions. So is it not true that there is an alternative? But in order to deal with the extremely difficult situation, red policies would be needed; and colours, as is well known, are a matter of taste. For the workers, the needs.