Portal de Cartagena

www.portaldecartagena.com

• Home
• Business
• Hotels
• Restaurants
• News
• Advertisement

The Yay @ flutes of Cartagena have never been Tides or Pensioners' Platforms.

Neither l from any other locality, as far as we know.

Our areas of mobilization, claiming and claiming rights have always been broader: residences for dependent and elderly people, historical memory, public health, adult and elderly education, care for young people, immigration and the most disadvantaged sectors , precarious workers, against gender violence, etc; always in the background, although fully implicating ourselves and supporting those who are the real protagonists in each case. However, during the last months, more than two years already, we have taken a step forward and we have mobilized in Cartagena, Murcia or Madrid, supporting and forming part of the COESPE movement (State Coordinator in Defense of the Public Pension System) , a group of some 280 associations dedicated to defending the rights of the group of pensioners.

In reality, we form an atomized movement and we do not have a very stable link, since the problem of pensions is channeled through associations with our own structures and social base like ours, but we have used this unique social movement to channel and coordinate the mobilizations, reaching some relevance and obtaining economic improvements acting as a pressure group on the governments in office.We all remember the intense period of the conflict, in which the conditions were right to promote large (and small) mobilizations. But COVID-19 appeared, a sanitary disaster aggravated by contamination that, despite what we have learned, we continue to aggravate by throwing gloves and masks anywhere.

A pandemic that has no relation to any other throughout history except the badly called Spanish flu or, looking back, the plague.

The origin of this new crisis is, therefore, not related to the productive or financial system, but in order to combat it, it has been necessary to paralyze the economic system and provoke a long period of confinement to protect the population from the deadly pandemic.

The fall in GDP and the increase in public debt will be the consequences, among others, not the causes.

Unemployment may reach 20-22% at the end of the year, affecting above all the most vulnerable social sectors, young people and women,again those who already suffered the 2008 crisis to a greater extent. Distribution and commerce, agriculture, cleaning, transportation, home and geriatric assistance, and health personnel, among others, which represents around a third of workers, precisely the groups with the most precarious employment, with miserable and mostly covered wages.

For women, they have been the pillars on which the operation of social services has been maintained so that the rest of the population is safe: less considered jobs have been essential and more exposed to contagion.

When "returning to normality" it will be necessary to prioritize and promote, on the part of the Government, the policies of defense of public services and the fight for a better distribution of wealth. If in 2008 banks were rescued by force and through deceit, now we must protect millions of victims from economic and social misery that we must avoid by all means.

Probably the least affected group will return to being the pensioner and, again, the elderly will have to contribute to saving many family economies, helping children and grandchildren. Faced with this horizon in which "crows and vultures" are already flying, pensioners must reflect on the suitability and validity of our demands, because the schemes used previously may not work.

The coming situation will demand other forms of organization, mobilization and grassroots association with clear objectives, such as the defense of public health and the in-depth review of the residential system, among others.

It will imply that the demands of pensions will no longer be the mobilizing axis, passing the witness and the prominence back to the white tides of health and those of residences, although without forgetting at any time the vigilance over the Public Pension System, as one of the pillars of the Welfare State. The population as a whole will demand genuine social and economic change that will require the participation of all possible and available grassroots organizations, including unions or AAVV, feminists and LGTBI, conservationists and youth, women and others, to put pressure on governments local, regional and national.

Within this movement, which must be unitary, plural, inter-territorial and intergenerational, the group of pensioners and the yay @ flutes will be one more without losing our own personality and autonomous functioning at any time, because we have no guarantee of new attacks on the SPP but quite the opposite. We encourage collectives and associations in our City to start a process of contacts, collaboration and mutual strengthening in order to defend the public and the most disadvantaged of the population.

Our e-mail and networks are at the bottom of the page, and our provision is always open.

Source: Yay@flautas Cartagena