OIT´s 105th Conference Speech to the Plenary by Quim Boix, General Secretary of WFTU´s Pensioners

OIT´s 105th Conference

Speech to the Plenary by Quim Boix, General Secretary of

WFTU´s Pensioners

Ladies and gentleman,

I talk to you as supposed representatives of the 7.000 millions inhabitants of the planet, and I do it to remind you the important claims of Pensioners and Retirees.

This I did it last year on this same forum, but it seems you didn´t listen our fair petitions. Still, here we are without a universal public pension for all those older than 60; a pension that guarantees, in any country of the world, a decent living; that is to say to have fresch water, enough and healthy food, a decent house, as well as public services on health, transportation and cultures, all of the efficient, of good quality and for free.

This are basic needs that all governments could ensure if we were living in a socialist society instead of living in a capitalist one. If instead of adding up more wealth to those that are currently wealthly this same wealth would reach to all mankind… You all know that world´s wealth concentrates each year in less hands: right now, the 62 richest persons of the planet own a wealth level equal to those of half of humankind. 62 people have the same as 3.500 million people… This figure shows that each one of this persons have a personal wealth equal to the wealth owned by 57 million people. This is a shame anda n injustice that neither you, nor capitalism are able, and won´t be never able to resolve.

That´s why Pensioners say that there are enough wealth in our planet to satisfy our fair claims. Other instance of that is the money – billions of Euros – that you, the governors, are using to encourage and wage imperialists wars through your main tool, the NATO. Only by changing the destiny of this money spent in weapons you could give hundred of Euros to every person in the planet each year.

But capitalism has not among its goals to satisfy people´s needs; it only to enrich those who are powerful. That´s why you, capitalist governors, are trying to approved the TTIP as a new instrument for the transnational companies to become even richer. But this approval you must be get by clasifying your documents as secret. This is the fake bourgeois democracy.

Meanwhile in Cuba, just to mention a socialist revolution, governors count on their people to discuss and participate in the debate on new laws, you, capitalist, hide yourselves from the people to approve this worldwide laws that will force changes in economic, social and labour legislation in every country, thus enforcing the dictatorship of capital.

As veterans and experts, we, Pensioners know that democracy means participation, and also means to know how to listen to the fair claims. From a historical point of view, veterans of each people were required to give their advise in order to improve societies´ adequate functioning.

You, branding yourselves as democrats, although not practising democracy, should listen to this voice, that is not my own, but those coming from the experience of people that have lived for more than 60 years and soon will be 20% of the world´s population and the 30% of the population entitled to vote… You may know that we are currently organizing ouselves all over the world.

Last year, the fourth of June 2015, on this same forum, I told you that we were organizing ourselves…

You may know that last Spetember 30th, at the Quito´s Andina University in Ecuador, we celebrated the First Conference of Pensioners´ organizations from class positions, that it means anti-capitalist.

You may know that next July 20th we will held in Denmark the First European Conference of Pensioners.

You may know that other Conferences will follow: in Africa, in November, and in the Asia-Pacific area in December.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, we Pensioners are organizing, and we are willing to continue the struggle for our fair claims till the last days of our lives. And we are fighting along our class, the working class, the exploited class; the class needed by capitalits in order to get theor billionaire profits applying those fact exposed by Karl Marx: the exploitation of man by man.

As organized Pensioners we give a great “NO” to the Private Funds for Pensions, whose only reason to exists is to enrich those who encouraged them, as it happens in every capitalist´s Business.

We say this as the only world trade union organization of Pensioners that, from inside the WFTU, with its 71 years of existence, is going to take part in its 17th Congress to be held in South Africa. At this point I take advantage of this forum to greet historical Congress of the WFTU and also to thank the South African trade union COSATU for its compromise with the WFTU; this is a trade union that fought from the underground against the black people discrimination while you, capitalists, supported the apartheid.

We say this as democrats who fight so the majority´s opinión –and the Pensioners´ opinión – will be take into account. And we say this at the inside of the OIT that very soon will reach its first hundred years of existence and that during this last stage have gave enough evindences of not being a democratic organization, as you all know. Here at the OIT a great support is given to those pro-capitalist. An unquestioned evidence of this un-democratic pattern lies in the fact that in spite of its 92 million members, our world organization established through 320 unions present at 120 countries of the five continents does not have any representative at the OIT´s board, while our rival organization as a worldwide trade union, the CSI, holds the total of the OIT´s posts attached to trade unions at its board.

We, Pensioners, say, as experts and veterans: “nothing unfair have prevailed in the history of humankind”.

That´s why capitalism won´t prevail… Capitalism is on its way for self-destruction and we, Pensioners, along with our class, the working class, are going to help to this destruction. Only by this struggle our fair claims will become a reality.

Thank you.

Geneve, June 6th, 2016