24th Congress of the IKA Pensioners Federation

Rich three-year action, strength for new struggles and claims | 902.gr

PENSIONERS

Monday 14/10/2024 - 20:38

IKA PENSIONERS' FEDERATION

Rich three-year action, power for new struggles and claims

The 24th Congress began today with hundreds of delegates from all over the country

With the participation  of 352 delegates representing 99 member unions and thousands of pensioners across the country, the three-day work of the 24th Congress of the IKA Pensioners Federation began today in Athens.

The Congress completes the cycle of three years full of rich action of the pensioners' movement, to claim the just demands of pensioners based on their real needs.

The hundreds of delegates were welcomed in a very warm atmosphere by the PAME choir with an artistic program dedicated to their rich activity.

George Perros addressed the proceedings on behalf of the PAME Secretariat.

In the presentation, presented on behalf of the outgoing administration of the Federation by its president, Dimos Koumpouris, the conditions in which the 2.5 million pensioners in our country survive were presented in full. Conditions shaped by the anti-insurance laws of all governments since 2010, the consequences of the pandemic, but also the wave of high prices that for at least the last three years has been eating away at meager pensions.

D. Koumpouris

Making a brief review of the content of this attack, the report noted characteristically: "Here is the deadly legislative provision that abolished the minimum pension and divided it into national and contributory, the endless cuts in pensionable earnings, the cuts in our Gifts, EKAS, widows' pensions, the increase in deductions for Health by 6% - even for the dead - the increase in our participation in medicines. Non-payment of the retrospective of the 11 months 2015 - 2016, the auxiliary and Gifts. The "personal difference" of the Katrougalos law maintained by the current government, despite its proclamations to abolish it. The grabbing of tens of billions from pension funds to recapitalize banks. The debts of large business groups to social security funds. The cuts to our pensions through high prices, which crush our income."

"Any meagre 'increases' given by the government at the end of its previous term after thirteen years are well below the rise in inflation and were not attributed to those pensioners who had a 'personal difference'. No increase in supplementary pensions has ever been given. For those pensioners whose total pensions exceeded certain accounting limits, they received an AKAGE solidarity contribution. The same for pensions that have crossed tax thresholds."

Faced with this situation that is getting worse every day, pensioners are preparing to give a militant response with the nationwide rally on November 22, rejecting government propaganda which, as it was characteristically said, attempts "to fill our wallets with thin air, lies and half-truths". They made it clear that the Federation and the pensioners' movement as a whole that is rallying within the framework of the Coordinating Committee of Struggle,  They will continue to claim all that has been forcibly taken from them and paid for all their lives.