The Organization of Handicapped in Iceland (ÖBÍ) called the protest together with several trade unions. The action came on the heels of a victory won by the ÖBÍ in December when the Supreme Court ruled against the Social Security Institute for cutting disability pensions in proportion to a couple's joint income. The court based its decision on a provision in the Icelandic constitution ensuring every individual the right to his or her income.

ÖBÍ lawyer Ragnar Adalsteinsson described the ruling as a victory for human rights. The court, however, left it to the government to decide how to carry out the ruling.

The government, a coalition of the center Progressive Party and the conservative Independence Party, put together a committee to interpret the ruling and work out new legislation to be put before parliament. Despite the court ruling, the bill says pension payments should take into consideration the income of a spouse. The committee also proposed that pensioners who have been receiving reduced benefits be granted retroactive payments, but only going back four years.

The protest took place as parliament was debating and preparing to vote on the bill. The most prominent slogan at the action was "human rights for everyone." Many of the protesters walked from City Hall to the parliament building.

The governing parties have tried to portray the protest by the ÖBÍ and the unions as a demand for a wage increase for rich recipients of disability pensions, but with little success. Even with the increase stipulated in the new law, disability payments are not generous. And 675 individuals, almost all women, will still have their pension cut because they live with a person who is considered under the law to have a good income.

With the new bill, the minimum income for a disability pensioner with a spouse was raised from $212 to $506 a month. Many ÖBÍ members became disabled after years of work but still hold full- or part-time jobs and belong to trade unions. The biggest group of handicapped people in the ÖBÍ are people with mental disorders and the second largest group is women with muscular problems.

In an attack on the struggle for the rights of disabled people, Pétur Blöndal, a member of parliament for the Independence party, wrote in the daily newspaper Morgunbladid, that the Supreme Court ruling will "weaken the status of the family and deprive it of the role it has had throughout human history...as the oldest, strongest and most intimate social security system."

The right to social security was won through working-class battles in Iceland prior to 1936, the year in which the first general social security law was passed.  
 
 
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