In Montevideo, on November 15, the Uruguayan worker stood up to protest the state’s incursions on their futures. A proposed pension reform proposed by the regime of President Luis Lacalle Pou threatens the retirement plans of thousands of workers, despite popular disagreement, the state continues to put its special commission to refine the details of the new bill.

Workers organized in the Inter-Union Plenary of Workers–National Convention of Workers (PIT–CNT), the Uruguayan union center, held a 4-hour strike with broad swaths of the population coming out in the thousands to stand in solidarity against the reform, “from the University of the Republic to the Legislative Palace.” (People’s Dispatch)

On the street the shouts and chanting of the workers could be heard for miles, chants like “Don’t let them steal your future,” “Against pension reform and the inequality model,” “In defense of the Social Security law,” and “For the elimination of the Pension Savings Fund Administrators (AFAP).”

The pension already is funded by 15% of workers’ incomes, and 7% by their employers; many foreign corporations are also exempt from contributing to the pension, despite the super-profits they exploit from native Uruguayan workers. The reform would exacerbate this dynamic, raising the retirement age to 65 years, which attacks early retirement benefits under the current social security system, and increases benefits for the private AFAPs, among other modifications.

President of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo Abdala argued this ugly truth at parliament as a rep for the striking workers, he said the reform “does not change the finance system at all.”

“They start [talking about the reform], taking as a base an alleged deficit in social security, but they don’t touch the finance, because they are not willing to do what needs to be done, which is to directly tax the wealthy [people] of this country. Since they are not willing to touch the privileged, it is absolutely clear that this pension reform bill radically violates the rights won by the working population.”

Despite the public sentiment in favor of the workers campaigns, the struggle is ongoing, but the PIT-CNT is restless, they announced on the same day for a following “24-hour national strike against educational reform, another of the government’s plans that has raised objections amongst social movements and educational unions.”