Argentina: Escalating Demonstrations of Workers and Unemployed Repudiate Milei’s Reactionary Plans

Resumen, May 25,2024 —

Just 3 days after the national series of Milei is Hunger meetings across Argentina even larger demonstrations took place again today. The sizes, collaboration and militancy of these actions are indicating a new stage in the struggle against the anti poor super neo liberal agenda of the narcissistic president.

In Buenos Aires, entitled the National Workers’ Meeting  was held in the Plaza del Congreso  with thousands of fighters, called by dozens of recovered unions and sections, delegates and internal commissions, social and picketers’ organizations, student centers and popular assemblies, with the intention to set a common course to confront the offensive of the Milei government.

The first to speak was the general secretary of the tire union, Alejandro Crespo, who valued the meeting as an opportunity to agree on how to confront “Milei’s macabre plan, which seeks to break the morale of the working class”. He emphasized that it is part of the alliance of the workers as the unity of the employed and unemployed, and for that reason he first of all proposed a statement against the persecution of the social organizations, “let us show that we defend ourselves among all the workers”. He also highlighted the support received by the Fate workers from the neighbors of the area, in their struggle against the layoffs.

He was followed on stage by “Pollo” Sobrero, of the Western Railway Union, who proposed solidarity with the struggle of the people of Misiones, and mentioned the mobilization in Córdoba in repudiation of the presidential act this May 25. Ileana Celotto, general secretary of AGD UBA, expressed the strong fight of the university teaching staff that comes from a national strike on Thursday and “the hard blow to the government” that meant the federal educational march of more than one million people; and raised as a perspective to fight for the general university strike.

After the opening remarks, the debate took place in a dozen commissions, where proposals for action will be exchanged on the different issues related to the needs of the working population.

The commissions where the deliberations took place were: labor movement, student movement, human rights, environmental commission, teachers, health, culture, unemployed, solidarity with Palestine, native peoples, document/national, retirees and housing. Their resolutions will be put together for a plenary vote.

ATE against massive layoffs

Meanwhile in Cordoba, Argentina’s second largest city, today unions and social movements have been mobilizing prior to the arrival of Javier Milei, who was to carry out a formal act for the 214th anniversary of the May Revolution. All along the route of the president there were tense moments with the Police, when some demonstrators especially near Plaza San Martín where Milei’s Cabinet had already arrived.

“We came to Córdoba to declare the President persona non grata. He is not welcome in this or any other province because through his policies he is destroying us all. What is happening in Misiones is a foretaste of what is going to start happening all over the country. Besides, it is an example for the governors of our resistance. It is useless to kneel before the central government”, added state leader Mercedes Cabezas,at the entrance Ingeniero Aeronáutico Ambrosio Taravella International Airport.

Protests are also being held on different points of Provincial Route E53, which leads to Plaza San Martín where the official act will take place. “The government has to know that it will not be able to deal with the state employees. Today, on the routes, we repudiate the closing of public agencies, the privatization of state-owned companies and we demand the immediate reinstatement of all dismissed workers,” the General Secretary of ATE Aguiar said.

This action arises from the Federal Plenary of Delegates that the union held at the beginning of May. After the protests in the province of Córdoba, the union will convene all its organic bodies in the next few days to define the continuity of the plan of struggle throughout the country.

Rubén Urbano, General Secretary of the Unión Obrera Metalúrgica (UOM) and one of the secretaries of the Regional of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), as representative of one of the sectors most affected by the downturn in the activity of the national industry, stated: “We are one of the most affected unions, we cannot stand idly by. The people of Córdoba have to show that it is no longer the 70-30 of the elections. The people are tired and want to show in the streets that they no longer want this policy of adjustment”.

For her part, the General Secretary of the Press and Communication Union Circle of Córdoba (Cispren) and Deputy Secretary of the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA) at national level, María Ana Mandakovic, said: “We, the press and communication workers of Córdoba, came to participate in this act that aims to tell Milei and also our Governor that Córdoba does not negotiate”.

And he remarked: “We did not want a pact and we have achieved it; we do not want neither the DNU nor the Bases law. We are also defending Radio Nacional, Télam, Public Television, and especially in our province, the Radio and Television Services of the National University of Córdoba, where layoffs are happening as never before”.

Finally, Roberto Cristalli, General Secretary of the Union of Educators of the Province of Córdoba (UEPC), clarified in principle that this demonstration is not against the presidential investiture, but with the government policies promoted by Javier Milei: “We think it is very important for all the people of Córdoba that the President comes to Córdoba, in such an emblematic act. What we do not agree with is this policy of adjustment, which is excluding a lot of people, which has suspended the national bargaining agreement for teachers, which does not leave us without a reference salary at a national level”.