The parliamentary discussion of the Social Security Reform project began. The
preliminary draft, which consists of 172 pages, was circulated and modificationshave already been proposed in the media and internal debate of the governmentcoalition. Especially, Cabildo Abierto has pressed for improvements for militaryretirees, in clear corporate defense, taking advantage of the narrow margin ofthe National Party, since it needs all the votes of the coalition to approve theproject. ---- For its part, the Broad Front has a hesitant attitude on thisissue. First, it left it out of the LUC referendum, which, being a substantialissue, drew attention. The FA trusted the commission of experts that would carryout the draft, believing that there its voice and that of the trade unionmovement would be heard and would have weight. The illusion did not last long.The project was already designed in its thickest lines and its pillars would notbe modified. Then the FA said they would vote on some articles, now it seems theywon't. But the truth is that the FA has voted for all the laws for thisgovernment, at least partially. Several actors in said coalition have indicatedthat they would vote on some parts of it.In global terms, the project is a neoliberal project, created by the right. Itgoes as deep as possible on the subject. The focus has been placed on increasingthe retirement age, which rises to 65 years, but this point is not the only one,nor is it the only pillar of the reform. For example, in the first articles ofthe draft it is established that all workers are included in the mixed system,since a minimum wage is not established that would not enter to contribute to theAFAP -as it happens up to now with the law of the years '90-, but that allworkers who receive up to a little more than 130 thousand pesos per month wouldcontribute 8% to the BPS and 7% to the AFAP. In this way, the mixed system isimposed in its entirety and the range of action of the AFAPs -banks and privatecapital investment insurance- is expanded, with which not only the financing ofthe social security institute (BPS) is harmed, but also large capital isbenefited with millions of dollars. Whoever earns more than 215,000 pesoscontributes their 15% of the montepío directly to the AFAP.The retirement age and cause is increased to 65 years of age and the 30 years ofwork are maintained, with the possibility of retiring with more years of age andless work, reaching 70 years and 15 years of work as a limit. In a neoliberalcontext of job insecurity, we know very well how difficult it will be to accessretirement and how small its amounts are. Even more so, when all retirees collectone part from BPS and another from AFAP.On the other hand, early retirement due to a long working career will be forthose workers who have contributed 40 years and can retire at 63 years of age...In fact, the retirement age for these sectors is increased, currently set at 60for all exercise. But those workers who, due to the "nature of their activity"(heavy work), could retire earlier, must have 20 years of contributions, 8 ofthem within the last 10 computable years. In these sectors -construction, ruralwork-, it is very difficult or almost impossible to generate such long employmentcontinuity and/or with proven contributions.Differentiated retirement grounds are established for the AFAP regime. The 60years of age and 30 years of work are maintained for some cases, but those whoreach 65 years of age and do not have the required work time and contributionsare allowed to retire through the AFAP and continue working, and continuecontributing 7 % of the montepío to the AFAP compulsorily. It is a reformdesigned to suit big capital. Of this there is no doubt.The retirement calculation is also modified downward. For the BPS regime, the 25years of "greatest computable allowances" would be taken (almost the entireworking life contributed). On the other hand, the review of life expectancy isestablished from time to time, in order to increase the years of work,establishing that those already stipulated in the present project cannot belowered if approved.Round business for banks and investment fund speculation. Attack on the qualityof life of the population and an endless number of social benefits covered bysocial security. There is no doubt that it should cover them better. But for thisyou need to get your hands on the benefits of capital. If the BPS is underfunded,it is because the bosses contribute little. While the workers contribute 15% oftheir salary as a montepío concept, the bosses contribute 7.5%. This thanks tothe dictatorship and the government of Lacalle de Herrera. If that amount werecontributed to the BPS, another story would be.Another element that would help to change this situation is to eliminate thesubsidies received by the Military Fund. We could go further and directlyeliminate the Military Fund and the Armed Forces, which only fulfill the role ofoccupation army, useful for the coups that the bourgeoisie and the empire needfrom time to time. The 500 million dollars that workers pay year after year tocover the benefits of a minority caste (the career military), should be directedto popular housing, education, health, basic services and job creation for the250,000 Uruguayans who are hungry.The AFAPs should also be eliminated, their funds and investments turned over tothe BPS, taxation of large transnational capital and large economic groupsoperating in the country, the agro-export sector and the financial sector shouldbe imposed. There are the capitals that are missing for social security and otherrelevant social issues.It is, in short, a fight for the redistribution of wealth, for mobilizing in thestreets so that those at the top do not continue looting the people.Education reform and student struggleThe government and the education authorities impose a "new" reform. In reality,it is almost the same reform applied by Rama in the '90s - strongly resisted,even with dozens of occupations of high schools and Utus throughout the country.In fact, the people driving the current "transformation" are the same people whodrove the Rama reform.Skills, reduction of academic contents, adaptation of education to the labormarket, forming docile subjects and adapted to long periods of unemployment, aresome of the elements that we find when reading the plagiarized proposals fromother latitudes by the Creole authorities.In reality, this "transformation" or reform is a direct attack on teaching and astrong setback. We can say that in the same way that the neoliberal modeladvances with the social security reform, the same model advances in education.The response from the popular camp was noted since mid-August, when the TeacherTraining students simultaneously occupied several institutes, then the Secondarystudents joined. After the evictions, new occupations, and in this dynamic thestudent movement remained for at least two months.In October, Secondary and Utu teachers joined the mobilizations declaring astrike, albeit briefly, one of the two largest mobilizations of the year aroundthe issue took place there. It is worth noting the conflict and measures takensince August also by Teacher Training teachers. Also the important mobilizationscarried out by teachers, officials and university students.Fighting measures that broke the quietism and that mark a path to follow anddeepen in the coming year.How to face these reforms?These two neoliberal reforms are not going to be easily defeated, with simplearguments in a debate or at the polls in 2024. They are projects in which thepolitical class agrees in general, they can discuss nuances, but not the essenceof the project. Only the popular struggle will be able to stop its progress anddefeat these disastrous proposals, which speak clearly to us of the vision ofsociety that those at the top have: to squeeze the worker until he can no longerdo it and train future workers fit to be squeezed without scream. And if they gohungry or have serious difficulties, they shouldn't squeal either and "adapt".The society they want is a society without rebels, without struggle. But thatbourgeois dream is impossible to achieve. Where there is power from above thereis resistance.It is necessary that the unions, student unions and other popular organizationstake to the streets, discuss joint action plans, increase the levels of directaction and develop a broad and deep popular mobilization that defeats theneoliberal advance and opens the way for popular alternatives and from down.Defeating the social security project will imply developing a reform with agreater social accent, where capital is taxed and the privileges of the militaryfund are eliminated, in principle, as we indicated previously. Defeating theeducation reform implies opening a process of popular construction of the same,autonomous and co-governed in principle, with a significant budget increase.Two necessary defeats that the people must inflict on the hunger regime to openthe way for a process of strong popular leadership.The situation in BrazilBrazil is experiencing a tense situation. After the narrow victory of the PT inthe ballot, the followers and supporters of Bolsonaro have taken to the roads andare demonstrating at the gates of the barracks asking for "federal intervention",which is synonymous with military intervention; Virtual coup. The Bolsonaristasbase their demand on the fact that, for them, there was fraud in the elections.This discourse has been fueled by Bolsonaro himself in the run-up to theelections, to which is now added the official non-acknowledgment of his electoraldefeat, silently fueling the mobilizations of his followers.The main problem is that Bolsonarismo has become a political movement not only ofthe elites, but with great popular deployment, even among the lowest sectors ofBrazilian society, with the ability to mobilize and win the street, the samestreet that the left and popular movements abandoned after Lula's firstgovernment. They certainly feed on discourses that are not based on reality,which makes them live as if in a parallel reality, as various Brazilian studiespoint out. An example of this is to describe Lula as a "communist", or that"communism" is coming in this period and that it must be stopped with a militaryintervention. The very idea of electoral fraud does not stand up to the slightestscrutiny.But this false reality is experienced as "the truth" by the Bolsonaristas. Ifsomething has created the extreme right of the northern country, it issubjectivity. More than 25 or 30 years of construction of a reactionary,conservative subjectivity, where a fascist and Nazi discourse has found a place,in addition to the pro-coup militarism of 1964 that Bolsonaro knew how to placein the public arena openly. All this mixed has been generating a socialsubjectivity that crosses all social classes and mobilizes them for the sake of aconservative and dictatorial society. A kind of religious crusade. And it hassomething of it, since neo-Pentecostal and neo-evangelical churches are afundamental part of this construction of subjectivity and popular roots.The Brazilian popular movement will surely return to the streets, waking up fromthat progressive siesta that tried to fit it into the corset of the system sothat it would not bother the rich. But it is those rich who are tightening therope to impose their political power and domination at its best. But theBrazilian people know about resistance and struggle, as they demonstrated in 2013.Finally, to clarify: it is not about supporting this or that candidate, party orpresident. It is a matter of stopping the advance of the extreme right and as theBrazilian experience itself shows, this cannot be achieved by agreeing withcapital or doing what those at the top want. It is achieved with people on thestreet fighting for a different society.We bid farewell to comrade Juan Carlos MechosoOn October 11, Juan Carlos Mechoso left us. Founding partner of the FAU in 1956,an active anarchist militant since 1949 (he started in the military at the age of14) and a mainstay of a series of activities of our organization. He wasresponsible for OPR 33, the armed apparatus of the FAU, from its founding untilhis arrest, months before the coup. He was savagely tortured by the military,taken time and again from the Libertad Prison and tortured again because of theflag of the 33 Orientales -so sought after by the dictatorship for the "Year ofOrientality" in 1975-.Once he was released from prison in 1985, he advocated, along with other releasedcomrades, exiles and the new generations, for the reconstruction of FAU, whichwas presented publicly in 1986. He was a social militant in the Comedor del Cerroduring those years. He maintained as a constant the slogan of the FAU of the 50sto refresh Anarchism, to provide it with new perspectives and problems, not toremain stagnant in time, but it is the task of the Political Organization tomaintain the validity of our ideas and operations in the social medium.An indisputable benchmark of our Organization and our Specifist current, hemilitated until his last days with an admirable will and total humility. He wasfraternal in the debate, always nurturing militant elements and concerns to hiscomrades, an acute analyst of reality. Great militant and great human being.The path that our people follow towards their emancipation will need several JuanCarlos, several men and women of our people willing to give everything forSocialism and Freedom.JUAN CARLOS MECHOSO LIVES IN THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE!!!FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF PEOPLE POWER!!!UP THOSE WHO FIGHT!!!URUGUAYAN ANARCHIST FEDERATIONhttps://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/carta-opinion-fau-noviembre-2022/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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