Thousands of people took to the streets in Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina this Wednesday to say no to the state destruction promoted by President Javier Milei. As the new government moves forward with a mega-law in Congress and a decree that it is implementing with hundreds of measures, trade unions, social organizations, opposition politicians and various self-organized groups are demonstrating against the projects with which Milei wants to usurp legislative powers. Take special measures and deregulate Argentina's punished economy. A general strike also began at 12:00 (local time) and will last until midnight, the first this government has faced.
“The country is not for sale” is the slogan most chanted this morning in front of the Congress, where the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the largest trade union federation in Argentina, called for a march to accompany the general strike this Wednesday. Thousands of people gathered on Mayo Avenue, an artery in central Buenos Aires that connects Congress with the Casa Rosada, the seat of the executive branch. Truck drivers, health workers and government employees came there, but also hundreds of pensioners, tenants, theater clubs, book publishers, environmental activists and defenders of the rights of people with disabilities. The same was true of the Peronism of the Unión por la Patria and the Left and Workers' Front. Each of them with an argument against a mega law that, in its more than 500 articles, leaves no sector of the national economy untouched.
The demonstration was met with a large deployment of security forces responsible for taking care of one of the government's obsessions: ensuring that traffic in the capital is not disrupted by the demonstrations. Since December, the government has implemented an action protocol against demonstrations that threatens protest leaders who block routes with arrests and even that the social organizations they call will have to pay the police's “operating costs.” Agents may also conduct transportation checks to search for protesters. This morning they checked buses plying at the entrances to the capital and banned those who wanted to cross a bridge on foot in the south of the city.
The Hospital de Clínicas in Buenos Aires was empty this Wednesday due to the general strike. Anita Pouchard Serra
The CGT estimated that 80% of its members nationwide agreed to the strike (around five million people). The union also estimates that 600,000 people mobilized in Buenos Aires during the march, while 1.5 million mobilized throughout the country. However, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich reported 40,000 demonstrators and Buenos Aires police chief Diego Kravetz spoke of 80,000 participants in statements to the media. The echo of the protest was heard across the country and also reached other countries such as Italy, where a group of demonstrators demonstrated in front of the Argentine embassy in Rome.
Tensions soon erupted between police and demonstrators in Buenos Aires. At about one o'clock in the afternoon in Argentina (four more hours in mainland Spain), while a group of people shouted in front of Congress against Milei's law, federal agents broke the concentration by pushing to open a lane of the Callao road for cars to pass . Minutes later, gendarmerie troops arrived and closed the doors of the Legislative Palace amid catcalls and insults from protesters.
Aerial view of the demonstrations in front of the Congress this Wednesday in Buenos Aires.Marcelo Endelli (Getty Images)
The strike had started shortly before, at noon. Unions reported that hospitals were operating with minimal security guards and services such as garbage collection and street sweeping were affected by the measure. The strike on public transport – buses, subways and trains – began at 7:00 p.m. to “facilitate the possibility of concentration and deconcentration” for protesters, the unions said. The country's airports continued to operate, but some companies, such as Aerolíneas Argentinas, the flag carrier, announced cancellations and rescheduling of flights: more than 20,000 passengers remained grounded. In addition, the suggestion was circulating in WhatsApp groups not to consume in “every shop that is open”.
The government has reduced the scale of the strike and demonstration. Patricia Bullrich, security minister, said the impact of the measure was “minimal” when compared to the number of people who “decided to go to work”. “I get pictures of the entire country open and operating,” Bullrich said. “Nobody is pushing us into a corner, especially not a march of 40,000 people. They represent 0.5% of eight million workers, they do not exist,” he defended. The minister also oversaw the application of the anti-demonstration protocol imposed by her government to ban road closures and the heavy security operation in the center of the Argentine capital.
THERE IS NO STOP THAT WILL STOP US
Mafia unions, poverty managers, complicit judges and corrupt politicians, all defending their privileges and resisting the change that society has democratically decided and which the President is leading with determination. @JMilei. There is no unemployment…— Patricia Bullrich (@PatoBullrich) January 24, 2024
Bullrich is scheduled to meet with Milei at the end of the day at the presidential residence in Olivos “to analyze events,” according to presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni, who also stated that “the day of the strike will be discounted.” Employees who join. The spokesman described the measure as “nonsense” and called on companies and workers who do not support it to “go about their business as normal”.
It is the third massive protest against the president and the first strike called by the country's largest union federation in five years: the last took place in 2019 during the government of the conservative Mauricio Macri. The strike is an expression of rejection of the measures imposed by the Milei government since its arrival at Casa Rosada. In addition to the strong adjustment that Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced a few days after taking office with a 50 percent devaluation of the currency and the reduction of subsidies for energy and transport, two enormous measures were later added. The first was a mega-decree that is in effect but is being challenged in court by those who consider it “unconstitutional” – a court has already suspended the labor reform contained in the decree. The President then sent Congress a bill containing more than 600 articles to be voted on by Congress in extraordinary sessions.
Trade unionists hope the strike and demonstration will convince opposition lawmakers to support the president's mega-bill. “We demand dignity and principles from MPs. “Don’t betray the workers, the pensioners, those who have less,” demanded the trade unionist Pablo Moyano this Wednesday on a stage near the Congress. The initiative received a statement in committees early Wednesday and will be discussed in the chamber starting this Tuesday. However, the opposition MPs who supported the project did so in dissent, that is, with reservations about many points contained in the latest version of the text. Lawmakers will consider each article in detail in the Chamber of Deputies, and the project could fall where the ruling party is in the minority.
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and union leaders during the CGT general strike in the Plaza de Congreso. Anita Pouchard Serra
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