“This new legislature will continue to dignify pensions and revalue them according to the increase in the cost of living, we will continue to take steps to ensure that citizens have decent and stable jobs, we will continue to increase the minimum wage, and the minimum vital income, we will continue to increase scholarships and study grants for our young people.”
The Delegate of the Government, Sabrina Moh, has appeared before the media to take stock of the last mandate and to give an account of what will be the model for the XV Legislature that we have just begun.
The highest representative of the Government of Spain in our city wanted to compare the model of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez against the model of the Popular Party in its different areas of competence.
“This year 2023, which we have just finished, we have had a record job of 21.2 million people working. Just 10 years ago, with a government of the PP we also had a record, that of unemployment, in 2013 Spain reached its worst number of unemployed of all democracy, with almost 6 million unemployed,” he recalled.
In this chapter, Moh recalled that the PP government made a labor reform to reduce the dismissal that led to the collapse of wages and the explosion of job insecurity.
However, the Government of Pedro Sánchez has made a labor reform thinking about job stability and the dignity of workers. “Today, in Melilla there are 1,797 fewer unemployed in the city than when the Popular Party ruled,” he said.
But, in addition, in 2019, just before approving the labor reform of the current government, there were 2,071 indefinite contracts in Melilla compared to the 6,840 that there are now, which is 230% more. 4,769 indefinite contracts have been created in these 5 years, while Social Security affiliates almost reach 25,000.
Increased pensions
In his speech, Moh also recalled that the PP government carried out a pension reform, using the roller of its absolute majority, “with which it condemned our pensioners to a brutal loss of purchasing power”, given that “year after year they were impoverished because their pensions rose by 0.25%, or in other words, little more than one euro a month, well below the cost of living”.
Faced with this, the government headed by Pedro Sánchez has linked the revaluation of pensions to the increase in the CPI. Thus, the average pension in Melilla, with the system of the Government of progressive coalition has gone from 1,150 euros per month in 2018 to 1,503 euros per month this year 2024.
This is an increase of 353 euros per month or, in other words, an increase of 4,942 euros per year. However, if the PP system had been applied in the same period of time, the average pension would have increased by 17 euros per month or 238 euros per year.
“The Melilla pensioners, with the PP method, would have stopped earning 339 euros a month. If instead of Pedro Sánchez being president today, we had had a PP government during this time, our pensioners would have lost 4,700 euros a year,” he said.
Bank rescue
The Delegate has made it clear that the model that established the PP was to give greater privileges to higher incomes, rescue the bank and dismantle the Welfare State. “I do not need to remind you that not only did it not carry out a single new infrastructure in Melilla but, in addition, it paralyzed all those that the Socialist Government left in place in this city,” he said.
Thus, he recalled that the PP by law increased the pupil-to-classroom ratio and reduced the teaching staff, as well as those of police and civil guards, health professionals and all public employees in this country.
“They – he has pointed out in reference to the popular ones – rescued the banks while taking an extra pay from public employees and implemented measures to favor the elites and the great fortunes” against “this government that protects the people and puts in place measures to favor the social majority of this country”.
A task in which the Executive of Pedro Sánchez has always counted on the opposition of the PP: “The people have voted ‘no’ to the increase in pensions, which benefit almost 9,000 melillenses. They have voted ‘no’ to the increase in the salary of public employees, despite the fact that it is a measure that favors about 10,000 melillenses. They voted ‘no’ to the creation and improvement of the Minimum Vital Income, despite the fact that it is a huge help for 13,800 melillenses of which almost 7,000 are minors,” he said.
“They have opposed any measure that favors citizenship: the improvement of scholarships, the electric social bond, measures to prevent the increase in the price of fuel and gas from having an impact on citizenship…”, he lamented.
In any case, the head of the Government Delegation stressed that, in this new legislature “we will continue to do the same as we have done in the last five years, which is nothing other than continue to protect the citizens and, especially, the most vulnerable”.
“We are going to continue giving citizens more rights and freedoms; we are going to continue strengthening the Welfare State with public job offers, with investments in Health and Education; we are going to continue dignifying pensions; we are going to continue increasing the minimum wage and betting on the stability and quality of jobs and, in short, we are going to continue working for and for citizenship, and we are going to continue betting on the advancement of our city,” he stressed.