Turning up the heat

The Director of the public sector workers’ social security system is making the rounds to create pressure to privatize ISSSTE pensions. It’s an explicit political strategy designed to massage public opinion to increase public support for privatization. By prominently discussing the problem in the media, reformers hope to create the sensation that privatization is necessary and the only viable reform. Then, when the privatization proposal is submitted in Congress, the administration can use public support to pressure unions to accept a more extreme reform. [Sound like a familiar strategy? In Mexico, however, the need for reform is more pressing, though actuarial studies suggest that a parametric reform would be less costly than the privatization proposed by the administration.]

Unions, on the other hand, are waiting until the full proposal is presented in Congress to present their alternatives and attack the administration’s plan.