BUOYED up by his Liberty Advances (LLA) party’s unexpected successes in October’s midterm elections, Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei, has said that he intends to table what he euphemistically describes as a proposal for the modernisation of the existing labour laws when Congress reconvenes on December 6.  

Details of the proposal have yet to be released but, based on Milei’s previous attempt at labour reform, it is anticipated that it will include an end to Argentina’s system of sectoral collective bargaining, the first version of which was introduced by the Peron administration in 1953.

It would also increase the working day to 12 hours, four hours more than the current legislation limiting it to eight hours established in 1928, reduce the liability of employers to compensate workers for unfair dismissal, allow them to dictate when employees could take their holidays and vary their pay according to how productive they are judged to be.

Milei’s justification for the attack on workers’ rights is that it is necessary to increase productivity and create thousands of new jobs, a claim that is entirely without substance. In real terms, workers’ earnings are lower than they were before Milei was elected in 2023 and a study by the University of Buenos Aires has shown that the minimum wage has less purchasing power than it did in 2001, during the country’s worst crisis of modern times.

The drop in workers’ purchasing power has led to a deepening recession, with levels of consumption drastically reduced, a situation exacerbated by steep increases in energy tariffs and public transport costs. Public-sector workers have been among the worst affected, seeing their salaries decrease by 13.2 per cent. Their accumulated losses during the 20 months of LLA government amount to the equivalent of over two months’ pay.

Milei and his allies on the far right see their electoral success as an opportunity to transform the productive matrix of the country to the advantage of foreign, especially US, corporations and to the detriment of domestic capital.

The Americans are particularly interested in Argentina’s rich deposits of uranium, lithium and copper as well as unconventionally produced oil and gas from the giant Vaca Muerta fracking operation. Milei also envisages the scrapping of state entities providing vital functions in the provision of health, education and social services.

To discourage opposition to the dismantling of the state, there will be longer jail sentences for those found guilty of unlawful protest as part of a repressive apparatus designed to instil fear into the population that can be witnessed every Wednesday afternoon outside the Congress building in Buenos Aires, where retired people protesting against the reduction in their pensions are routinely beaten and gassed by hundreds of militarised police.

In his bid to bring down inflation, Milei has removed all restrictions on imported goods, leading to thousands of job losses in the sectors of textiles, metal working and footwear production, among others, and this has severely hampered the ability of trade unions to negotiate wage rises that keep pace with a rate of inflation that is still higher than it was in 2015 under the Peronist administration of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Nevertheless, although they are currently on the back foot and continue to operate within a bureaucratic framework that does not always lend itself to decisive decision-making, they are still the most powerful trade unions in the Americas. On November 5, the oldest and largest confederation, the CGT, elected a new triumvirate of general secretaries to preside over its 280 affiliated unions.

The system of multiple secretaries has been in place for nine years and represents an attempt to incorporate all shades of opinion in a disparate membership, though a large minority would favour a return to a single leader.

Regardless of internal differences, the CGT has committed itself to doing everything possible to prevent Milei’s proposals from coming to fruition. Almost immediately after his election in 2023, Milei issued a presidential decree attacking trade unions’ ability to organise. The CGT went to law and obtained a ruling that the decree was unconstitutional and contrary to international norms including the right to strike and collective bargaining.

On that occasion, the president had no option other than to withdraw the decree but, with increased representation in parliament following the elections, he will be more confident of gaining a majority decision that could not be overturned by the courts.  

Milei has openly stated that he wants to “destroy” the trade unions because they are a hindrance to progress and has shown no sign of wanting to discuss the matter with them, regardless of existing norms requiring tripartite discussions, ie between government, labour and employers.

For its part, the CGT has said that any proposal to reintroduce the measures contained within the 2023 decree would be considered completely unacceptable. In spite of Milei’s typical bluster, CGT leaders have said that they would expect there to be negotiations and discussions.

Interviewed on TV, Jorge Sola, one of the new triumvirate said that they were waiting for a phone call and reminded viewers that people voted for a government, not for trade union reform. Since then, Interior Minister Diego Santilli has said that there will at least be informal discussions with the unions and hoped that there would be a “mature dialogue.”

Sola’s colleague Cristian Jeronimo has stated that they were quite prepared to speak to the government though any discussion should look at strengthening workers’ rights and a fairer distribution of wealth. Clearly, there is little chance of that.

ATE, the public-sector union, has already decided to send a strong message to the government and called a 24-hour strike and demonstration in Buenos Aires on November 19. No doubt it will be the first of many because this is one battle the unions simply cannot afford to lose.