A new publication by the ILO confirms PSI’s long-held position: the privatisation of public pension systems has delivered vast returns to a tiny financial elite while diminishing the incomes of workers in retirement.
- The primary beneficiaries of privatisation are elites within societies
- Privatisation frequently facilitates and increases corruption
- Government and corporate promises of universal benefit of privatisation are inflated and under-delivered
- When governments announce privatisation, unions must prepare to fight
- Accumulated evidence shows that most privatisations can and should be defeated
- Privatisations can be reversed[i]
The privatisation of pensions has been a core element of neoliberal restructuring promoted by the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the Inter-American, African and Asian Development Banks, USAID and the financial services companies who derive the ultimate benefit. And, as with much of the privatisation story, Chile was the first country to privatise pensions systems under the direction of US-backed military dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1981.
Rosa Pavanelli, PSI General Secretary, notes:
The lessons for trade unions in public services are equally important:
Rosa Pavanelli, PSI General Secretary, notes:
“I want to congratulate Isabel Ortiz, Fabio Durán and their team at the ILO for this book. It starkly reveals the hypocrisy of pension privatisation, which has basically institutionalised the theft of workers’ wages. It shows the moral bankruptcy of the neoliberals, who knew exactly what they were doing. One can only feel outrage when reading the conclusions. But one also feels hope that good sense will prevail, and that the remaining countries with privatised pensions will take them back under public management – as is increasingly the case in water, energy, transport, health and other key public services.”The lessons that PSI draws from this experience are consistent with the experiences of privatisation in other sectors:
“Another aspect of this work that must be acknowledged is the evidence that when workers are not involved in decisions, we can be sure that their welfare will not be protected. Worker and trade union involvement is essential, and our job is to ensure that governments and the international agencies respect our legitimacy, especially around issues as crucial as social protection and retirement.”
The lessons for trade unions in public services are equally important:
- When governments announce privatisation, unions must prepare to fight
- Accumulated evidence shows that most privatisations can and should be defeated
- Privatisations can be reversed.
