Press Release, 11.07.2018

Deputies of the Yabloko faction of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Emilia Slabunova and Andrei Rogalevich submitted to the Karelian parliament an appeal to the State Duma against raising the retirement age. It will be considered at the final meeting of the Legislative Assembly in this political season tomorrow, on 12 July.

Yabloko’s deputies indicate that if the retirement age is raised, a significant part of Russians will not survive to retirement. Reports from the Russian statistical agency (Rosstat) the government referred to, show only the life expectancy for newborns.

It is still difficult for the elder people to find jobs, since there are no strategic retraining programmes in the country, production is automated, and low-skilled jobs are disappearing from the labour market.

According to Yabloko MPs, low interest of employers in older employees, their replacement by younger employees will lead to a significant increase in the number of unemployed elderly people who either do not have means of subsistence, or who are forced to work informally as “cheap labour”.

Regional MPs urge their colleagues from the State Duma not to support government’s reform. “We are convinced that today it is necessary to take decisions that would encourage legalisation of labour in the country and punish employers who use shadow labor, as well as [encourage] decisions that raise the productivity of labour and increase the payment of dividends of state corporations to the country’s budget and the Russian Pension Fund,” the statement runs.

Earlier Yabloko’s appeal was supported Irina Petelayeva, Karelian MP from the Fair Russia faction. However, the profile committee of the Legislative Assembly declined the initiative.

Yabloko’s regional MPs in other regions also criticised raising the retirement age. Thus, Boris Vishnevsky, Yabloko MP in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, made a speech in the St.Petersburg parliament calling MPs not to approve the bill. Lev Shlosberg, Yabloko MP in the Council of Deputies of the Pskov Region, spoke at a rally conducted by trade unions. And the Assembly of the Krasnokamsky District of the Perm Terriotry,  on the initiative of Olga Kolokolova, leader of the Perm Yabloko, unanimously decided not to support the pension reform.

The State Duma plans to consider the bill on raising the retirement age in the first reading on 19 July.  Yabloko is going to conduct protest actions in Moscow and St. Petersburg on the threashold the Duma meeting.