Parliament adopts social security law and name for 2009
Campaign News | Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Cuban Parliament unanimously adopted the new Social Security Law on 27 December, which was previously submitted to discussion by Cuban workers.
The name of the upcoming year as “Year of the 50th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution,” was also approved during the meeting.
The law was passed in the afternoon session, which was attended by Cuban President Raul Castro. The lawmakers announced that the rules complementing the law are currently in the works and will soon be submitted to the Council of Ministers.
The draft bill was discussed by over three million workers, who made more than 900, 000 proposals to enrich the document. Some of the changes to the original draft included the expansion to fifteen years of the span of time considered to pick the five years with the highest salaries for a worker to obtain his or her pension, after retirement.
The new law now states the financial protection of children over 17 years of age, without parents, until they conclude their professional or university courses. The new legislation also stipulates that the retirement age for women is 60 years and 65 for men, while in the draft bill such ages had been proposed at 62 and 67.
The law provides other pension-related benefits and that those who are pensioners may go back to work and receive both their pension and the full salaries of their posts, as far as they get a job different from the one they used to have before retirement, though they can work in their own professional specialty.
The new legislation stipulates that workers who, at the time the new law gets in force, have turned retirement age (55 for women and 60 for men according to previous legislation) plus the service years, may retire when they decide to.
The Cuban Parliament also adopted the name of the year 2009. Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon said that the upcoming 12 months will be special, because Cubans will celebrate half a century of their Revolutionary Victory.
Cuban parliamentarians adopted the name of 2009 as “Year of the 50th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution.”
