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Proposed Mexican Social Security Overhaul Sparks Violent Protests, Late-Night Senate Debate
By Will Weissert, Abilene Reporter News
August 5, 2004
MEXICO CITY- Fierce debate over a bill that would reform Mexico's Social Security Institute's pension system stretched well past midnight Thursday on the Senate floor.
Hours of final discussion of the measure followed massive protests by institute union members, who blocked main avenues across Mexico's capital, surrounded the Senate building and fought with police in protest of the would-be law.
One group of demonstrators tried to block a convoy of buses taking senators to the legislative chambers and a scuffle ensued.
Senators from President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party and the Green Party have said they will support the proposal, while the voting bloc of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party has pledged to oppose it.
The fate of the measure then appears to hang with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which controlled Mexico's presidency from 1929 until 2000 and holds the most seats in the Senate. Its legislators remained deeply divided before dawn Thursday.
"This reform is insufficient by every measure," said Institutional Revolutionary Sen. Dulce Maria
Sauri.
The proposal would prohibit the institute from using its operating budget to fund pensions and require that retirement funds be financed entirely by deductions from the pay checks of institute management and workers.
Because employees contribute only a small percentage of their wages to the pension fund, the social security institute says it already is spending more each year on pensions than on medicine and other medical materials for patients.
The plan would also restrict the hiring of new institute workers.
The proposal's supporters include the president, whose government claims it is necessary to stave off a financial collapse at the agency known as the IMSS, which supplies much of Mexico's health care.
Its critics say the measure unfairly attacks the pension system instead of tackling larger inefficiencies within the social security system.
For instance, IMSS workers are now allowed to retire with pensions at the age of 53, compared to a minimum 65 for the rest of the country. Women can retire after 27 years of IMSS service, and men after 28 years, regardless of their age.
The proposed overhaul makes no mention of modifying retirement age or requirements, however.
Last week, the lower house of Congress approved the measure. But the Senate must vote to support it before it can become law.
IMSS employs 370,000 workers and pays pensions to 120,000 retirees. Its large and powerful union has promised a massive work stoppage if the Senate supports the measure.
Chaos reigned throughout much of Mexico City during the two days leading up to the Senate debate. Health care workers and other employees engaged in running blockades that cut traffic on dozens of streets.
Mexico City authorities, who normally refrain from estimating the size of protests, said 11,000 people took to the streets Wednesday.
The protests caused huge traffic jams in a city which, even on a good day, has the second-slowest traffic in the hemisphere.
"We know that we are affecting people by blocking traffic," union representative Beatriz Arenas said as she stood with a crowd of protesters at the intersection of two main avenues. "But people have to understand our struggle ... the government's intention is to privatize social security, and break all the unions."
Many of the signs carried during the demonstrations were clearly defensive, even if the protest tactics weren't.
"A lot of the media are seeking to blame us for the financial problems at the IMSS," said union activist Laurencio Heras. "But it's really mismanagement by the directors."
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