A STRIKE protesting against Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei’s attack on the country’s labour laws disrupted public transport, hospitals, ports and schools across the country on Thursday.
 

The lower house of Congress approved the Bill, which grants employers greater flexibility in matters of hiring, firing, severance and collective bargaining, in a 135-115 vote early today.
 

The legislation won initial support from the Senate last week but must be sent back to senators for a final vote before becoming law.
 

That’s because the government was forced to scrap a clause that halves salaries for workers on leave due to injury or illness unrelated to work after an outcry from opposition lawmakers.
 

As lawmakers debated the reform, bus lines and subways ground to a halt. Factories paused production, banks closed, airlines cancelled hundreds of flights, and public hospitals postponed all but emergency surgeries.
 

A march to Congress by radical left-wing unions was attacked by police with water cannons.
 

President Milei considers the changes to Argentina’s labour code crucial to his efforts to lure foreign investment, increase productivity and boost job creation in a country where about two in five workers are employed off the books.
 

Unions argue that the law will weaken the workers’ protections.
 

The Bill limits the right to strike, reduces the bargaining power of unions and makes it easier for companies to fire workers by extending their probation periods and curbing their ability to sue employers when they are dismissed.
 

The legislation also cuts Argentina’s severance pay and empowers employers to mandate 12-hour workdays, up from the current eight.
 

“Members of Congress, hear this message: Voting against working people does not come without consequences,” the General Confederation of Labour, Argentina’s largest trade union group, posted on social media alongside photos showing Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires deserted because of the strike.

“Jobs are not up for negotiation; hard-won gains are not raffle prizes to be given away.”