Argentine labor organizations are participating today in the second general strike called by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) against the policies of President Javier Milei.
The protest action will last 24 hours and has slogans such as La Patria no se vende and Milei para la mano.
In addition to all the sectors that make up the CGT (commerce, construction, truck drivers, banking, state, metal workers, health, and teachers, among others), the Central de Trabajadores de Argentina (CTA) and the CTA-Autónoma (Autonomous CTA) have joined the action.
Affiliates of land and air transport unions are also participating, so the capital’s subway, train, and bus services are expected to be paralyzed, as well as interruptions in Aerolíneas Argentina flights, which have already canceled 191 flights.
In a joint communiqué, the CGT and the two CTAs pointed out that the strike is aimed at defending labor, social, social security, and union rights, and demanding a living wage.
In addition, they denounced the adjustment carried out by the Executive in the name of market freedom, which especially affects the lower-income sectors, the salaried middle class, retirees, and pensioners.
We are facing a government that promotes the removal of rights, redefines the role of the State, closes and reduces to its minimum expression important agencies and institutions that assist our population, and causes thousands of layoffs, the text states.
It also denounces privatizations, the surrender of natural resources, the paralyzation of public works, and the de-financing of social security, health, education, science, and culture.
They also condemn the incessant increases in the prices of food, medicines, and essential services.
A 31 percent real fall in the budget allocations for pensions and retirement, 87 percent in works, 39 percent in transport subsidies, 76 percent in transfers to the provinces, 18 percent in cuts to universities, and 13 percent in social programs, are some of the indicators that show that the adjustment is not paid by the caste, but by the most vulnerable sectors, the document points out.
Faced with such a scenario, it assures that the workers’ movement is organized together with the people, united and standing up.
We reaffirm our commitment and right to participate in the design of the society to which we aspire. This is a day of resistance and demands for the needs that must be addressed and repaired. Rights are not for sale. The homeland is defended, he concludes.
On January 24, 45 days after the beginning of Milei’s administration, thousands of citizens flooded the Plaza del Congreso in the capital city and other spaces in several Argentine provinces as part of the first strike carried out by the CGT against the Executive’s measures.
On that occasion, the workers also rejected an anti-protest protocol, a decree of necessity and urgency, and a package of regulations presented by the President to reform or repeal more than 300 laws, grant himself legislative powers, privatize companies, and change the labor system, among other provisions.
