Central trade unions called for mobilisation on Wednesday against cuts to workers’ rights promoted by the government of Javier Milei, Argentine media reported
Héctor Daer, co-chair of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), explained that “May 1 is a special political and social moment” and ratified a general strike on May 9. He declared:
This has never been in doubt.
Regarding labour reform, he opined that it “should not have been debated in the way it was done” under the Bases Act, and said that in their view, “in the Senate we will definitely have the necessary debate. This is an executive project shamefully overrated by a sector of the radical bloc running to the right of the Milei government,” he further explained and pointed to Rodrigo de Loredo:
He is absolutely lost in the political and ideological arena of our country.
Before the CGT march, Patricia Bullrich spoke again about the implementation of her protocol against the protests. She reportedly said:
We will see what the march will look like, but all forces are engaged. We have to take care of the public spaces so that there is no violence in them. There are conditions in the protocol that are true. We are working to make sure that the march is up to the mark, that there is order and that people are not detained for hours because it ruins their lives.
Argentina’s oilseed and maritime transport unions began a strike on Monday to protest a labour reform bill backed by libertarian President Javier Milei that lawmakers began debating earlier in the day.
The first thing Milei did as president was issue an emergency decree that allowed him to make hundreds of sweeping changes without congressional oversight.
In just a few months, Milei devalued the Argentine peso by 54%, abolished food price and rent controls, froze all public works projects, halved the number of federal ministries, reduced transfers of public revenues to the provinces, cut fuel and transport subsidies, and laid off 15,000 public employees.
Milei declared a “new era of prosperity” last week when Argentina recorded its first quarterly budget surplus since 2008. He stabilised the peso exchange rate on the black market after months of free fall. Bond prices rose.
But that’s little consolation for poor and middle-class Argentines struggling to feed themselves amid rising prices and falling wages. More than 40 per cent of Argentines now live below the poverty line.
