All workers should have the right to rest and security after years of work. Yet many workers in Canada and around the world are excluded from social security and healthcare protections, forcing them to continue working past retirement age. Pension justice must remain a priority so every worker can age with economic security and dignity.
Since 2023, the Steelworkers Humanity Fund (SHF) has supported efforts in Bolivia to raise minimum state pensions to the national minimum wage, improve investment returns, and give workers a seat on the government board overseeing national retirement funds.
Like our very own Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), local organization Flora Tristan works with trade unions, academics and retirees to promote policy and legislative reforms to ensure pensioners can have dignity and protections at retirement. A key achievement of our partner, working alongside the Bolivian National Confederation of Retirees, was presenting in May of this year a law bill consisting of 14 articles including a demand to increase guaranteed liveable minimum pension levels and establish worker-led social oversight over pension fund management.
With the support of the SHF, Flora Tristan launched digital tools including a pension calculator and a mass social media education campaign on pensions and social security benefits. Like SOAR, Flora Tristan encourages both younger and older workers to understand the importance of a dignified retirement as a fundamental human right.
Through this project, Steelworkers, through the SHF, are demonstrating solidarity with aging workers and elderly adults, helping ensure they are not forgotten or left vulnerable to inequitable economic policies that push them into poverty or precarity, and championing a fairer future for all retired workers near and far.
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