Buenos Aires. Several hundred workers mobilized this Wednesday in the center of Buenos Aires on the occasion of International Workers’ Day, called by the main trade union center in Argentina, just one day after President Javier Milei achieved the first parliamentary support for a labor reform that unions consider a threat to their rights.
GALLERY: The world clamors for better working conditions during Labor Day marches
It is one of several marches planned in the region during the day.
In the Argentine capital, long columns identified with flags of different unions advanced along the main avenues of the center towards the centenary Monument to Work, where an event is planned.
“When all social, labor, union and pension rights are threatened, it is a day of vindication and defense of the achievements and acquired rights that are intended to be violated without respecting the voice of the workers,” said the General Confederation of Labor. (CGT) in a document released to coincide with the demonstration.
The reference points to the austerity and reform policies promoted by the ultra-liberal Milei, who the day before achieved his first legislative victory with the sanction in the Chamber of Deputies of the so-called Bases Law, a package of regulations with which the president intends to deregulate to an economy marked in recent decades by strong state intervention. The initiative must now be discussed by the Senate.
In labor matters, the initiative extends the trial period of a worker, repeals fines against companies for unregistered employees, establishes a new compensation system for dismissals and sanctions participation in blockades or takeovers of establishments by workers.
For the CGT, historically linked to Peronism that is today in opposition, Milei “in the name of a misunderstood ‘market freedom’, implements a brutal adjustment that is especially suffered by the lower-income sectors, the salaried middle classes, retirees and pensioners” , who have been suffering for years from inflation—288% year-on-year in March—that devours their pockets and has thrown almost 42% of Argentines into poverty.
The CGT also ratified the second general strike against Milei on May 9.
Coinciding with the protest, the president published a video on social networks greeting the workers for their day and posed in an indirect message to the unions: “Who is the good or the bad? “The one who demands rights that do not exist or those of us who want to get people out of this misery?”
“This historic moment is for patriots because fixing this country requires enormous sacrifices,” he harangued.
#Unions #protest #Mileis #labor #reform #Buenos #Aires
– 2024-05-03 22:58:51
