“The social security system plays an essential and irreplaceable role in ensuring the economic security of all peopleactive and retired workers and their families, being a crucial instrument to combat poverty, inequalities and social exclusion and to maintain social cohesion,” states the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers – National Inter-Union (CGTP-IN), in a statement. released this Wednesday.
Even so, the CGTP regrets that the system has been “under constant pressure for several years” and affirms that it is being questioned by demographic factors – such as the aging of the population and the decline in birth rates – but also by the Generalization of the precariousness of employment and low salaries.
To these factors, which translate into lower income from contributions and an increase in spending on benefits, are added “the pressures coming from the private sector, particularly the insurance sector”, which according to the CGTP wants to expand its intervention in the desirable area. of social benefits. protection”.
The CGTP also affirms that the new Government, the result of a coalition between the PSD and the CDS-PP, “does not hide its intentions.”
“The threats have not disappeared, quite the opposite, with the coming to power of the current Government, which does not hide its intentions, expressly stating in its program that the solution to the social security system, in particular the public pension system, is Due to its privatization, at least partial, the risks to public social security increased exponentially,” highlights the CGTP.
For this reason, the CGTP requests that financing alternatives be sought that safeguard the sustainability of the public social security system.
“The great challenge currently facing the public social security system is to guarantee its effective financial sustainability, maintaining its integrity, without distorting the principles of labor and intergenerational solidarity on which it is based,” the agreement highlights.
The CGTP believes that the way forward is not to reduce social contributions (TSU) or finance the system through taxes, nor to limit the level of social security or any other form of total or partial privatization of social security.
“We will not accept any curtailment or reduction of the right of all citizens, of current or future generations, to full protection in the event of illness, old age, disability, widowhood and orphanhood, unemployment, family support and any other situation of lack or reduction media. of subsistence or work capacity, within the scope of the public social security system,” highlights the CGTP in the statement.
Source: Observadora
