Pension fund riddle

The government refrained yesterday from unveiling concrete proposals for funding the social security system, promising instead to present a «complete and credible» scheme by the end of April. Representatives of employers’ organizations, who met yesterday with Economy and Finance Minister Nikos Christodoulakis to discuss the reform of social security, said they were still waiting for the government’s complete proposals; some excluded outright any increase in their contributions to the system. Union representatives, deeply divided over how to respond to the government’s reform proposals, failed to show up. Although Christos Polyzogopoulos, the president of the General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE) and a member of the ruling PASOK party, is in favor of talks with the government, other members of the GSEE executive committee have refused to enter into a dialogue, saying that the government is not being straightforward about how the financially strained system will be funded. The civil servants’ umbrella union ADEDY, which has taken a harder line on the issue, yesterday called for a one-day strike on April 11. The GSEE executive will meet next Thursday to discuss possible strike action. Pro-communist GSEE unionists have called for a one-day strike in unions they control, such as construction workers, for next Wednesday. Polyzogopoulos nonetheless declared yesterday that GSEE will not «abdicate» from its participation in a dialogue. Following yesterday’s meeting, Christodoulakis said that the government wanted to present a «long-term contract» that would make it clear to each employee the level of his or her pension. He also voiced his belief that GSEE would eventually choose to participate in the dialogue. Odysseas Kyriakopoulos, chairman and executive president of the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV), agreed that it would be better if GSEE attended the meetings. «The road (to an agreement) is still long, since employers and employees do not possess all the facts in order to evaluate the proposed solutions,» said Kyriakopoulos, adding that Greek enterprises had «reached their limits» in contributing to the social security system. Dimitris Armenakis, vice president of the merchants’ federation (ESEE) expressed his concern that the government was interested only in the solvency of the Social Security Foundation (IKA), the largest pension and healthcare fund, and was ignoring the financial plight of several other funds. After encountering stiff opposition to its proposals, unveiled last year, to raise the retirement age and cut pensions, the government has come up with the package that does not raise the retirement age but provides incentives for employees to retire later instead.