The National Chamber of Labor, contacted by the country's largest trade union, has suspended this Wednesday, November 3, the “Labor” chapter of the measures requested by the new Argentine head of state, pending a substantive legislative review. .
Less than a month after taking office, a first setback for Xavier Milei. The new ultra-liberal Argentine president had to watch this Wednesday, November 3rd, as the labor law part of his reforms was temporarily overturned by the courts. The National Chamber of Labor, a labor rights organization contacted by the CGT, the country's largest trade union federation, took “a precautionary measure to suspend the applicability” of the provisions of the Labor chapter of the December 20 decree. This suspension is only for the duration of a substantive legislative review.
The National Chamber of Labor considered that the reform in question was not sufficiently urgent to justify circumventing the powers of Congress by decree. The government “will appeal,” assures Rodolfo Barra, the “Attorney General” in charge of monitoring the legality and advising and defending the State.
Just before Christmas, Xavier Milei signed a “mega-decree” aimed at destabilizing the economy, as he had promised during the election campaign. The aim was to change or abolish more than 300 standards, including those on rents, privatizations and thus labor law. From the unions' perspective, the most controversial aspects of the proposed labor law reforms concern the extension of the probationary period from three to eight months, the reduction of severance pay in the event of dismissal, the restriction of the right to strike and the possibility of dismissal in the event of a blockade or occupation of the workplace.
A real “conservative and authoritarian revolution involving a very violent opening of the economy along the lines of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom or Augusto Pinochet in Chile,” described economist Célia Himelfarb in our pages last week. Specialist in Argentina and visiting professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies for Latin America.
In a country where inflation is at 160% over a year and where the poverty rate reaches almost 45%, according to data from the Argentine Observatory of Social Debt, the “liberal shock” triggered by the executive is looming, according to Javier Milei. Critics leading to social catastrophe. The protest is organized on the street. While between 25,000 and 30,000 people marched in Buenos Aires on December 27th, a general strike was called for January 24th.