The Central Committee of the Socialist Party demanded this Saturday to the government a “urgent” recovery of real wages and pensions with measures that aim to “stop the growth of poverty and inequality” and give a different direction to the salary policy promoted until now.
“In a context of permanent drop in wages and real pensions, we once again demand that the national government urgently recover the income of the vast majority of the population, substantively modifying the salary policy and addressing the problem of famine with in-depth measures. These and other changes are essential to stop the growth of poverty and inequality as well as the precariousness of work and the loss of rights and guarantees that is affecting the popular majorities,” the statement said.
From the sector they made a special mention to the workers in their day and warned about the “harsh bourgeois and reactionary offensive” that they observe in Uruguay.
“This date finds us facing a harsh bourgeois and reactionary offensive in Uruguay, which aims to precarious public and private work and to transfer income from wage earners and retirees to capital. This has been verified in these years where the profits of privileged sectors have increased while the living conditions of the majority deteriorate, as denounced by the presence of hundreds of popular pots and solidarity initiatives that support thousands of workers throughout and width of the country,” the statement said.
“We cannot ignore that we will commemorate a new International Workers’ Day in a global framework marked by war and the growth of violence and inequality. Uruguayan socialists, with our sights set on the workers of the world, return to demonstrate for peace and against the action of all the imperialist powers,” he adds.
The document also expresses the rejection of the party to the pension reform proposed by the multicolor coalition, which they questioned for being “based on the loss of rights by workers and retirees.” As they understand in the PS, the eventual modifications should also include other social actors, such as the Retirement and Pension Services of the Armed Forces and the parastatal funds.
On the other hand, he insists on giving his support to open a discussion around the constitutional reform, not with the intention of enabling presidential reelection, but to “generate a new regulatory framework that truly guarantees the dignity and rights of all inhabitants from the country”. “In that sense, already in 2015 we elaborated a series of proposals that we continue to offer as input for an essential discussion,” she expresses.
During the congress, the Socialists also analyzed the result of the referendum on March 27, which was intended to repeal 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration, and agreed that although they suffered an electoral defeat, the result did not mean a ” political failure” for the movement.
“The process of rejecting the LUC that culminated in the referendum ended with an electoral defeat, but this does not mean a political failure for the popular movement. The regressive, reactionary law, at the service of the powerful, of the interests of the bourgeoisie, remained firm, but the popular movement was able to open a new phase of accumulation of forces crucial to advance in the field of change”, they expressed in the declaration.
“On March 27, women, youth and many neglected neighborhoods spoke out forcefully and decisively for YES,” the statement concludes.
