“This debate and the proposals of the so-called economists are beyond the realities of life and work. Slide rules are no substitute for the realities of employees. A pension at 68 cannot and should not be automatic. Alleged forecasts of life expectancy have always changed. And today the reality of work in companies is such that employees can hardly make it to the current pension limit. Anyone who wants to make improvements here has our full support. Anyone who wants to force people to retire early and cut pensions with discounts provokes our resistance.
It is no way out of the challenges of statutory pensions to burden people with more private risk through obscure stock models and time pensions. The pension should not be a financial relocation station, but deserves a solid and solidarity-based strengthening with adequate retirement payments. That’s why we finally need to convert the statutory pension into employment insurance, into which everyone pays. Nobody can avoid a solid and fairly financed contribution rate. And the demographic challenge is a task for society as a whole that must be cushioned by tax resources.”