14) WHY RETIREMENT AGE MATTERS

 

By Darrell Rankin, Winnipeg

 

            One of the moves by the Harper regime was to phase in a retirement age of 67, up from 65. It did not affect older workers, who vote in higher numbers. But the measure targeted younger workers.

 

            The profit motive is behind moves to increase the retirement age in many OECD countries.

 

            First, companies with huge pension liabilities (auto, steel, etc) don't want to see it repeated, especially now that workers live well past retirement.

 

            Second, it is an effort to squeeze every last ounce of surplus labour from the better-trained portion of the labour force.

 

            Of course, the move decreases the odds of young and discriminated workers getting hired. So once this older generation of workers is 'used up', good luck youngsters!

 

            For the capitalist “a quick succession of unhealthy and short-lived generations will keep the labour market well supplied as a series of vigorous and long-lived generations,” as Karl Marx noted in 1865.

 

            It is also easy to see that a short-lived worker has less chance of understanding the need for socialism. This explains the drive to impose conditions of19th century capitalism on workers.

 

            There is no doubt that a measure like reducing the retirement age would boost the hiring of young people. Like a shorter work week, it would have the same effect, as would more paid vacations such as for International Women's Day, International Workers' Day and election days, for starters.

 

            It would reduce the agony of all the unemployed, among Aboriginal, women and immigrant workers. In the former socialist countries, women often retired at age 55 and men at 60.

 

            Although equality was entrenched in the USSR's 1977 constitution, the earlier age was affirmative action on the part of socialism to recognize the need to overcome ongoing discrimination against women under socialism, inherited from capitalism.

 

            (In fact, affirmative action was everywhere under socialism. Coal miners retired at age 55, to reduce and mitigate severe occupational health hazards.)

 

            Only a classless, communist society where all democracy deficits are overcome will have no need for legislated affirmative action.

 

            Recent proposals for pension reforms focus on who pays for public pensions, the CPP and OAS. In the end, workers pay for all public pensions - they are deferred personal or social wages. This is because workers are the only human source of wealth in society.

 

            But should women, the new generation and other discriminated groups continue to get lower CPP benefits because of lengthier gaps in work?

 

            Should the working poor live in everlasting poverty from too-low CPP benefits, on the charity of food banks?

 

            Should workers now have to reduce their wages to pay for higher CPP and OAS benefits, in the form of more wage deductions?

 

            No to all the questions! Take the cost from corporate profits! And for discriminated groups, reduce the retirement age and increase their personal CPP benefits!

 

(The above article is from the February 15-29, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)