The Coalition government is at it again. Whenever it seeks to abrogate its social responsibility and save money it resorts to stigmatisation and scare tactics. The latest is attacking "the cult of early retirement". The government wants more Australians to work longer, thus delaying taking the pension and saving private and government employers millions in reduced retired workers' benefits.
Workers are already, in effect, funding their own retirement through compulsory superannuation arrangements. The campaign against early retirement is the latest instalment in PM John Howard's project to dismantle the social welfare provisions built by years of collective struggle.
The campaign is following the standard formula. A headline grabbing soundbite is followed up by a number of members of the government expressing concern that "misinformation" is being spread around. They stress that workers really do have a choice as to whether they retire or not at 65 and this is all about making sure their retirement incomes are adequate to their needs and that they are socially valuable as older workers. Amid the confusion and uncertainty we need to be clear about the real agenda underlying this attack on older workers: withdrawal of a government-funded aged pension.
The same message is coming from the Federal Reserve in the US and at about the same time. Surprise, surprise. According to John Buchanan, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations, Research and Training (University of Sydney) this is all part of a softening up process to change people's expectations about the pension and prepare them for insecure employment in later life rather than secure leisure. So we need to ask who would be affected by this policy and to what end.
First, despite the government's attempt at stereotyping, all older workers are not the same. Social scientist Sol Encel has done considerable research on one major category: the victims of "downsizing" and "restructuring", who have lost their jobs. They want a job but many have given up after writing hundreds of job applications. Employer discrimination and ageism are a contributing factor in relegating these workers to the scrap heap. Where do these issues appear in the government's statement?
Thirty years ago, 55-year-old workers who lost their jobs could expect to be re-employed in less than a year, now it is more than two years. For 3 million Australian workers in the bottom third of the income scale, life looks bleaker as they get older — not only are their jobs disappearing or being casualised, but they have no chance to accumulate a realistic retirement fund. "And", Buchanan pointed out, "now they are being told to work till they die."
Contrast the life situation of this group with the category treasurer Peter Costello clearly identifies with — educated professionals who have the capacity to enjoy self-funded, choice "choices" — go early and grab the super and/or continue working part time doing stimulating stuff. The gap between these two Australias is widening.
The squeeze on the capitalist state comes from the need to maintain or increase the labour participation rate with an ageing population and the pressures to lower taxes, but still fund social welfare. Howard's answer is simple: keep people at work longer regardless of the working conditions they would have to endure.
There are other possibilities of course — higher taxes for the rich — or opening opportunities for what Siobhan Austen from Curtin University calls the "biggest source of underused labour — women aged 25-54." But as she also points out "women" is the government's blind spot.
Dismantling of the Australian welfare state has been going on for 20 years, beginning with the Hawke-Keating Labor governments. The Socialist Alliance stands for defence of all social welfare programs. We are part of the community campaign to resist government attempts to further widen the split between better-off and less-well-off members of the work force. We invite all workers to join us to defend a decent aged pension for all those who have paid taxes all their working life and therefore are entitled to security in their old age.
Paul Kringas
From Green Left Weekly, April 29, 2004.
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