The universal basic wage project is in debate not only in politics, but also within social movements. Yes ok no organization refuses that the State grants an income destined to be able to eat at a time when food prices are out of control, they do have big differences about whether universal income is the claim behind which to line up forces.
What do those who question it say? Basically, it is intended to contain social outbursts but does not solve its causes. That solves homelessness without changing the causes of inequality. Along these lines, the most critical organizations recall, raising an eyebrow, that it is a policy recommended by the IMF and the World Bank. They also see their organizations, built in resistance to neoliberalism since the ’90s, and ask themselves: “Did we make all this effort to ask for a subsidy of 14 thousand pesos today?” Obviously, your answer is no. For their part, the organizations that support universal income put into the balance other types of reasons, such as that of end homelessness. They appreciate that this basic income is implement as a right -that is, it could be sustained despite changes in government, as happened with the Universal Child Allowance. Social references indicate that will benefit women, in fact recognizing the value of care work. Another argument points to the benefit of freeing the poor from “cognitive tax”, that is, the investment of psychic resources that has to be made by those who live from day to day, those who are in the struggle for survival.
The proposal came to the fore when Cristina Kirchner he supported the idea of discussing the creation of a universal basic income. In Congress there is a project presented by the deputies of the Front Patria Grande, which is referenced in Juan Grabois and proposes an amount that covers the basic individual basket per equivalent adult, today 14.400 pesos. This week the cristinista senator Juliana Di Tullio held a round of consultations preparing another project, aimed at families of four members with incomes that do not cover the food basket (the indigence line for this group today is 44.500 monthly pesos). Social organizations are going to keep the issue on the agenda this week, with a day of protest announced for this Wednesday 20.
Here are some of their positions in debate. First, those who criticize universal income will speak -since at this moment they are the positions that have had less diffusion-; and then, their defenders.
Pablo Chena – Evita Movement: “I think that the universal wage proposal does not solve the problems that the popular economy has to solve. The great cause of socio-labour inequality is informality. Inequality is not resolved with a minimum income for the informal workers, but rather by extending the frontiers of formality to those modes of work that are not recognized”.
“What does it mean to formalize informal workers? Formalizing informal work is not only registering it so that they can register, for example, with a productive monotax (which would be having a fiscal formalization), but accessing commercial formalization (being able to bill and be blank), productive (access to machinery and technology) , financial (access to credit) and labor (have a union, a pension and a social work)”.
“The popular economy has to go towards formalization, that is, access to all that package. The formalization also includes an income policy, which is a salary that complements the income devalued by the market”.
“For the current emergency, I would prefer that the IFE be extended for a while, but quickly start the formalization process in which the income policy is discussed. For example: how will socio-community work be recognized with income? What income policy will work have in the case of recovered companies?”
“Thinking only about giving an income to informal workers, in this way, is an error and a horrible concept: it is to classify them and leave them as informal. It is a patch that does not build the institutionality that you need”.
Coco Garfagnini- national referent of the Tupac Amaru: “We do not agree with Juan Grabois’s universal income proposal because it means accepting that work cannot be generated in Argentina. We want to discuss how work is generated; Unfortunately, in the Frente de Todos that is not being discussed”.
“Grabois accepts this country model and wants to mitigate its defects, which are the consequences of a factory, colonial country. We believe in another model of a country that produces, generates employment, distributes income, a country that existed with Perón and with Néstor Kirchner”. “There is a problem if we think that the only way to guarantee a plate of food for our people is by putting 14,400 pesos per month in the pockets of the most humble, while the wealth that is produced in our soil, subsoil, sea, space, work and development ends up being liquefied by the gutter of speculation and capital flight”.
Eduardo Belliboni, Workers Pole: “We are closer to the idea of insurance for the unemployed that is related to salary. The Juan Grabois thing is not related to salary, but rather it is a bonus. Unemployment insurance would recognize, on the other hand, that the responsibility for the absence of work lies with capital, not with the workers. Therefore, with a tax on capital, unemployment insurance can be paid”.
“We do not agree on the universal basic salary of 14 thousand pesos. What we ask is to universalize the Empower Work and defend the popular organization in the neighborhoods”.
In support of universal income
Dina Sánchez, Darío Santillán Front: “I think that the universal basic salary is a feminist measure because it comes to recognize care work. In the two years of the pandemic, the socio-community branch, the companions of popular kitchens, the health promoters, were the ones that worked the most. The situations of violence increased a lot and it was they who banked the situation. We also have colleagues working in spaces for children and older adults, and what happens to us? That the socio-community branch is not recognized as a job and has the most serious income problems.”
“It is also a feminist measure in the sense that the first problem for women when they remain in a circle of violence is that they do not have economic autonomy. They can’t go.”
“I believe that the universal salary is not going to solve anyone’s life, but it is going to give people more options. I hear that from the political sectors they say where the money is going to come from, that this is not the time; but at the same time they talk about rebuilding Argentina and doing it from the bottom up. And when will be the moment? Because below are precisely those 7.5 million people who work but have no rights. I think of the girls who are selling handkerchiefs on the Roca train, in which they are cardboarding with the boys on top of the cart. It is to them that the universal basic salary will reach”.
Juan Grabois, Movement of Excluded Workers: “We have been considering the Universal Basic Salary for years. The issue is quite simple: there is a huge number of workers without rights or sufficient income to live with the minimum floor of dignity acceptable for a so-called democratic society”.
“Someone could say that it is a subsidy for the unemployed. It is not like this. If you look at the unemployment rate, it is very low and the activity rate is very high. What does this mean? That they are all hardworking people, who earn from day to day and it is not enough for them to reach the poverty line and in many cases the indigence line. With the Universal Basic Wage we put an end to indigence in Argentina and we strongly reduce poverty. The income that each person would receive is the Food Basket, that is, it would cover the indigence line of the equivalent adult, currently about fifteen thousand pesos. This has an added benefit, that of freeing the poor from “cognitive tax”that is, the investment of psychic resources that has to be made by those who live from day to day, those who are in the struggle for subsistence”.
“It is not only about the poorest, but about all the people who work in the informal sector, either on their own (the majority) or as employees in small businesses and shops. Here comes from a cardboard box in Catamarca to the seller of the butcher shop of Florencio Varela, from the delivery kid and even the lady who takes care of an old neighbor, from the farmer from Santiago to the small horticultural producer from La Plata. We must assume the existence of this huge universe and find adequate and comprehensive solutions for each one, but the first thing is to guarantee that between what they earn and the universal salary they come out of the dramatic situation they are experiencing today. This also allows us to have a clear record and to be able to formalize all those jobs little by little”.
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