Freedom News

French anarchists on the strike for pensions

The following statement from France’s anarchist CNT-AIT union analyses the nature of yesterday’s general strike, which has brought out millions of people and affected everything from schools and transport to legal services and hospitals. The battle for pensions begins. But this is not a simple union battle for the defence of social gains, let alone

Work until you die

A report by the Centre for Social Justice has proposed raising the pension age to 70 by 2028 and 75 by 2035: Tory’s plan to raise the state pension age to 75 over the next 16 years. It’s claimed this is necessary in order to deal with rising pension costs. Somehow, the fact that UK

Plan C: On the university pensions struggle

Elio Di Muccio writes on the encouraging strength of recent strike action and the potential for a more radical attack against the long programme of marketisation which has afflicted higher education. The student movement which started in 2010 in protest of the tripling of tuition fees in higher education predominantly took the form of direct

Argentina: Macri’s conservative policies won’t pass

Federico Abal writes on the broad repression of progressives which is being carried out by the Macri government, and how people are fighting back including with a mass march on December 18th. In Argentina, Mauricio Macri`s government repeats the old reasons of conservatism: cut spending to balance the budget, balance the budget to reduce inflation.

Chile: Women and the pensions backlash

Following a new wave of protests against Chile’s Pinochet-era privatised pensions system, María Carrasco of libertarian communist journal Solidaridad looks at why women have particular reason to stand up for a new way. Major rallies have been ongoing since last year against the six private for-profit funds which currently hold Chile’s £122 billion in assets but pay just