With the votes of the ruling party, The Senate approved this Thursday the law to reform the social security system promoted by the Government of Luis Lacalle Pouwhich, among other measures, increases the retirement age from 60 to a maximum of 65 years.
After the House of Representatives approved modifications to the original text and with 17 affirmative votes in 28the senators of the parties that make up the government coalition ratified the changes to the norm, which will be sent to the Executive Power for its promulgation.
The project, already passed into law, had been approved by the Senate last December and was pending a vote by the deputies, where objections from the right-wing Town meeting (CA) and the center-right Colorado party (PC) forced the Executive of Lacalle Pou to negotiate.
Thus, among other measures, the PC and CA, requested review pensions for widowhood and severe disability or reduce the measure of “best years” from 25 to 20 years to calculate basic retirement salary.
Created with the endorsement of a Commission of Social Security Experts, before being sent to Parliament in October 2022, the reform was described as “necessary” and “solidarity” by Lacalle Pou, who has highlighted its approval as one of the great priorities of his term.
However, was not accompanied by the opposition left-wing coalition Frente Ampliowho governed between 2005 and 2020, nor by the unions.
Thousands of workers from areas such as health, transportation or education mobilized this Tuesday in Uruguay within the framework of the general strike called by the trade union, the PIT-CNT, to express their rejection of the government’s pension reform project, which they described as “socially inefficient” and “against the people.”
On the day in which the articles of the project were voted in the Lower House, which completed its work on Wednesday to return it to the Senate, its opponents gathered outside the Legislative Palace to protest.
There, the spokesperson for the PIT-CNT Sergio Sommaruga He pointed against the plan of a government that, he said, did not listen to the workers and took into account only the benefit of “a privileged minority.”
It will apply from those born on January 1, 1973. These people will retire at 61 years, instead of doing it at 60 as until today. Then, those born in 1974 may retire at 62and so on until reaching those of 1977 onwards, who will be allowed to do so from their 65s.
However, the reform includes two exceptions not to retire at 65 years of age. The first is for aextensive working career” and affects those who have 30 years contributed when the law enters into force, and those who generally reach the 40 years of work.
The other way to access an exception is to work in a position “particularly demanding”, as is the case of construction workers and rural workers who perform jobs that imply “a high degree of physical exertion”. In that case, they will be able to retire at age 60 with 30 contributions.
In another order, until now the retirement system was mixed and will continue to be so, but with modifications. Currently, of the 15% of the salary that the worker contributes to the retirement system, 7.5% goes to the BPS (Social Security Bank) and 7.5% to the AFAP (Administrators of pension savings funds). With the change, 10% will go to the BPS and the remaining 5% to the AFAP.
Finally, it will also change the basic retirement salary calculation. Since the reform, the best 20 years will be taken for the equation. Remember The country that this number was reached after long negotiations between Cabildo Abierto and Lacalle Pousince the government’s initial proposal was to take 25 years.
Meanwhile, following a request from the Colorado partya mechanism was included Social Security Assistance Tax reduction (IASS).
(With information from EFE)
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