A PAINFUL DECISION. By Mattías Meragelman

Province intimates those who are of retirement age. Numbers that explain reasons for the state that does not want to stop being active. Quintela’s promise, the problem that will come in a few years and the claim of precarious workers. A fundamental debate that needs long-term State policy to be a solution and not a patch.

In the Provincial Public Administration there are 3,000 state agents who are in a position to retire and do not want to do so. In this framework, the Government began a notification process last week to begin the procedures to stop being active workers.

“What we are going to do is put more emphasis on notifying all those agents who are able to retire and who have exceeded the age of 65 years for men or 60 years for women and who have not started the retirement process,” he said. Carlos Medina, Undersecretary of Human Capital, on “Riojavirtual Radio”.

The official clarified that the Executive’s decision only referred to the central public Administration, then each of the 18 municipalities can adhere or not to the measure. In that sense, the authorities of the capital’s “Juan Ramírez de Velasco Municipal Palace” have already announced off the microphone that they will join this position of the provincial government.

The reason why provincial public employees do not want to retire is quite obvious and has the peso sign as its main symbol.

Currently, a passive earns about 55% or 60% of his salary as an asset, with variations of all kinds depending on his personal work history and the places where he performed tasks. Just to have a reference: the minimum retirement is $270,000 with the bonuses paid by the national government included and the Basic Basket so that a family does not fall below the poverty line is above $800,000.

This historical process of imbalance and economic precariousness of Rioja retirees has deepened in recent months with the highest inflationary spiral in three decades and last December’s devaluation of 118%.

Behind all these numbers is the also harsh reality of the precarious.

Although there is no precise figure because the key is what legal link they have with the State, estimates range between 10,000 and 15,000 workers who are “linked” to the Province under some form of contract, program or social benefit that implies labor compensation.

These public employees have been fighting for years to enter the State. Today they have neither social work, nor employer contributions, much less the job stability of a permanent employee.

At the beginning of his first term and also once re-elected in May of last year, Governor Ricardo Quintela publicly committed that he would end his years in the “Casa de las Tejas” leaving all the precarious in the plant. The reality is that his first administration was the one that added the most employees to the State since 1995 and almost 10,000 workers were incorporated into the Province according to official information.

However, it is also true that it does not seem very plausible in economic terms to think that this definitive solution will arrive before 2027. In fact, last year the Rioja Government itself issued a decree suspending all transfers to the plant except those that were urgent in Health. and Security.

The most serious thing about all this conflict is that the retirement problem is just beginning.

In 2015, the Provincial Ministry of Finance prepared an internal report that identified at that time 11,729 state employees who had been serving in the public service for at least 20 years.

Just because of the weight of the almanac: in the coming years the number of workers involved in this problem will exceed 12,000 people.

At the time of retirement, a person’s last 120 salaries are taken into account, that is, the 10 years they worked before becoming passive. This legal determination implies that no real and substantive solution can emerge magically or in the short term.

The Government is supported by all the legal reason in the decision it made, but it would be a serious mistake to believe that the discussion is legal: the problem is economic.

This week it was crudely expressed by the general secretary of SITRAPP, Carlos Laciar, who said on “Riojavirtual Radio”: “The Government is right legally in ordering the summons. But today we fear salaries that put us below the poverty line, with retirement we directly go into poverty, people have to retire in a more honorable way, there has been no administrative career for 20 years, before there was a career ladder and there was an antiquity.

Nor can we fail to mention the national scenario in which this issue reaches the provincial media agenda.

President Javier Milei – who was voted by the majority of provincial public employees – announced this week that he will fulfill one of his campaign promises and will fire 50,000 national State workers. The Nation proposes to reduce public spending when in La Rioja we need to expand it.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry of the Province confirmed that there were more than 400 layoffs in industrial companies in La Rioja in the first five months of the year and the recession is hitting harder and harder, especially the private sector.

Currently, the provincial government reaches out with its “additional fortnight” to nearly 5,000 Rioja retirees, who have the possibility of being a little above the minimum retirement with this exceptional contribution made by the State (but who are not above the poverty line).

It is clear that the measures taken so far are not enough, because years of non-remunerative salary increases, salaries well below the inflationary process and a flattened salary pyramid have logically meant that today the state employees do not want to retire.

What was resolved by the Government had to be done because thousands of precarious workers are pressing to move to the plant. At the same time, the determination made by the Government has a clear political cost, because in this economic context any regular employee who is forced to retire will be angry with the “House of Tiles.”

In the last few hours, several tense situations have already been experienced in the Public Administration with civil servants of retirement age who consult their superiors about what their future will be. And there arises an extra fear: discretion.

There are those who logically fear that there are privileges for some, that by having “contacts” they will be able to avoid being affected by this measure, while others will be forced to stop being active.

A painful and unavoidable decision, but one that cannot be applied without considering that thousands of Riojans are being condemned to economic hardship. We did not arrive at this moment by chance, it has been years of wrong strategies with the mass of public employees. Now a long-term State policy is needed so that we are not just faced with a patch but rather a fundamental solution.

comments