When thinking about what this six-year term would be like, pensions, especially Afores, were a taboo fear. Would AMLO touch workers’ pension funds, would he cancel the retirement savings model? Regarding that, in 2024 the President has taken a controversial step.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador must be credited with modifying the retirement savings system so that workers benefit from a greater employer contribution, so that their retirements will eventually be closer to 100%.
That positive step taken in 2020 is now overshadowed by the way in which the Tabasco native intends for the government to receive funds from the Afores that have not been claimed.
The measure fuels fears before and after the 2018 election. An example of the latter is the morning of November 7, 2022, when he was asked about changes to the law that regulated the budget income stabilization fund:
-Is it true that the federal government is going to touch the savings funds for the withdrawal of reserves from the IMSS, the ISSSTE, Infonavit, pensioner bonds and Siefores shares? –She questioned him.
AMLO: “It is not true, that is another invention that was also very widespread over the weekend. I am not Zedillo. Who was the one who created the Afores? When were they created? With Zedillo, right? No, we cannot compromise the workers’ pensions in anything, I just said it like, well, relatively recently, but six months ago at an Infonavit meeting that we had here in the patio, which was raised by the union leaders who had that rumor and I said no, and there is absolutely nothing.”
López Obrador regretted months ago not having been more aggressive in the change to the pension model.
Hence, he now intends to steal money from the Afores to create a patch, which is what he intends: a sham scheme to promise 100% pension to those who earn less than the average IMSS salary: 16,700 pesos.
The worst thing is the way in which they have tried to carry out this new reform:
-They tried, as almost always, to pass a fast ball in Congress. They operate under the premise that if the opposition or actors involved do not resist, they will go home. Otherwise, they act surprised by the surprise.
-Once the controversy arises, and not without taking advantage of the fact that those who resist the government then also exaggerate the scope of an initiative that is little or not explained at all, they begin, rather than negotiating or removing legitimate doubts, to lecture about the vicious opposition that everything resists.
-The worst thing is that, in this as in other cases, official explanations cannot allay fears because that money goes to a fund that will neither be sufficient nor have clear rules: to these resources others of dubious existence will be added (profits from mega works , confiscations, etc.).
The fear of a nationalizing model is around again. Because he committed the sin of touching the workers’ funds, even if he says it is for their benefit.
And that is not trivial, less so in the context of the election in which Morena says in its Nation Project 2024-30 that: “In the long term, the individualized pension system inherited from the neoliberal period must be replaced by a public system that guarantee a dignified retirement for workers. In addition to being a question of social justice, it would be a powerful stimulus to labor formality.”
