Antonia Moyano qualified as a lawyer in 1989 and subscribed to the Mutualidad de la Abogacía Española and the Mutualidad de Previsió Social dels Advocats de Catalunya in order to cover her social benefits and her retirement. She paid her contributions to the mutual insurance company thinking that when she retired she would receive a pension of one thousand euros per month. But a year ago she discovered that her lifetime pension was 500 euros, well below the minimum that Social Security guarantees for self-employed workers or non-contributory pensions.
Before 1995, lawyers and solicitors did not have access to Social Security and had to subscribe to their benefits through a social security mutual fund created by their associations that performed the same role in an alternative way. Many lawyers believed that the contribution they paid went entirely to cover their pension and other benefits such as disability or paternity leave. “I thought I was in an alternative system, but with the same coverage as the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA), but they deceived us,” Antonia points out.
In 2005 there was a change in the alternative social protection system. The Legal Mutual Fund went from being of collective capitalization – there is a common pool that is distributed in solidarity – to being of individual capitalization in which each mutual member accumulates what he contributes. “We thought the fee was for our retirement, and it turns out that in the end it is like any private insurance. If you look at my receipts, you realize that they are above the RETA, but they only count toward retirement what the mutual fund assigns to you. "I don't assign anything, they assign it," reproaches lawyer Isabel Rabell, 49, who after 26 years of practice has decided to register as self-employed and try to speed up the last 16 years of her working life to contribute to Social Security and achieve a minimum pension and have benefits that do not depend on private insurance. The mutual insurance company calculated a pension of 400 euros, and she has decided to start contributing, even if that means starting from scratch. In Antonia's case it is already too late, just as it is for many lawyers who no longer have time to quote. Although lawyers have been able to join Social Security since 1995, the reality is that in many cases there was no real option to change. If they opted for the self-employed regime, after a long career, they could not redeem the contributions made to the mutual insurance company, nor was the time they had been working counted towards retirement benefits in the public system. The contributions were captive, irrecoverable until retirement, and were taxed as a pension plan. The lawyer Carles Valle, 52 years old, joined the bar in 1995 and subscribed to a social security mutual fund of the Barcelona Bar Association – now Alter Mútua – where he was promised that with the contributions he would end up receiving a lifetime retirement pension equivalent to the current thousand euros per month. But recently he discovered that the pension was reduced to 439.96 euros.
One of the reproaches to those affected is not having read the fine print of the contract with the mutual insurance company. “Should I distrust a mutual call for social security? Do I have to control an entity created by lawyers for our protection with our money? ”He says indignantly. “I am an expert in immigration, not insurance. There are some schools that we thought were our protectors and that has not been the case,” Antonia criticizes. Thousands of lawyers have organized themselves throughout Spain in the J2 movement, which fights to find a solution for pensions that they consider unworthy. They estimate that 70,000 lawyers and 40,000 attorneys could be affected. The remedy they propose is a gateway that allows them to switch to the Social Security contribution regime while maintaining the years contributed and the amount contributed.
From Alter Mútua they defend their actions and warn that all mutual members have been informed at all times of their situation. “Everything is detailed in the receipts we issue,” underlines the general director, David Gabarró. “You cannot expect that if you pay the minimum to the mutual insurance company, which is lower than Social Security, then you receive the same as in Social Security. “Everyone must know how to manage their economy.” The director assures that if the State approves a gateway, they will accept it. “This situation makes us feel bad. Our owners are the mutualists,” he highlights.
