Moroccan Education Retirees Plan Protest March Over Frozen Pensions

The protest act will take place on October 1, 2024, the International Day of Older Persons. "This approach comes in a context characterized by a terrible deterioration of the purchasing power of the Moroccan people due to the unprecedented rise in the prices of basic and consumer products, the increase in poverty and unemployment rates and the overall degradation of all public services, and continues to marginalize and exclude retirees and pension holders, with a freeze on their pensions that does not meet the minimum requirements for a decent life for them and their families," denounces the national office of the Union of Retired Teachers in Morocco (UREM), affiliated with the National Federation of Education (FNE) in a press release.

The National Office of the Union of Retired Teachers in Morocco (UREM) recalls that it sent a letter on July 26, 2024 to the Head of Government, the Minister of National Education and the directors of the pension funds and social security institutions concerning the general claims file of retirees, which was approved during the second national congress of the union on June 24 and 25, 2024 in Rabat, and calls on the government to react quickly and positively to the claims file that has been submitted to it. It condemns "the savage neoliberal approach" of the government and its general tendency to privatize public service, including employment, education, health, transportation and housing, by transferring them to financial institutions and large landowners, which have consequences on the purchasing power of the general public and the living conditions of retirees.

"The decision to protest results from the situation experienced by retirees and their suffering due to the freezing of pensions and the rise in prices of essential consumer products," explains Momoche Lahcen, national secretary general of the Union of Retired Teachers in Morocco affiliated with the National Federation of Education (FNE), noting "the lack of any government attention to examine the file of retirees." On October 1, the International Day of Older Persons, established in 1990 by the United Nations (UN), will be "an opportunity to make the voice of retired teachers heard to claim fair and legitimate rights, which have been formulated in a claims file approved by the second congress held in June 2024 in Rabat," the union leader further explains. "The protest actions of retired teachers at the Ministry of National Education will begin on this occasion to demand a pension increase in response to the requirements of life," he continues, while noting that some pensions in the private sector are below the minimum wage.