A general strike protesting Argentine President Javier Milei’s flagship overhaul of the country’s labor law disrupted public transport, hospitals, ports and schools across Argentina on Thursday, and intensified a standoff between the libertarian leader and long-powerful workers’ unions.
The lower house of the Argentine Congress yesterday approved the bill, which grants employers greater flexibility in matters of hiring, firing, severance and collective bargaining, in a 135-115 vote.
As lawmakers debated the reform, bus lines and subways ground to a halt. Factories paused production, banks closed, airlines canceled hundreds of flights and public hospitals postponed all but emergency surgeries. Uncollected garbage lined streets and shopping areas.
Photo: Reuters
A march to the Argentine Congress by radical left-wing unions briefly turned violent as police fired water canons at protesters throwing stones and bottles.
Milei considered the changes to Argentina’s half-century-old labor code crucial to his efforts to lure foreign investment, increase productivity and boost job creation.
Unions said the law would weaken the workers’ protections that have defined Argentina.
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 traditionally high severance pay and empowers employers to mandate 12-hour workdays, up from eight.
Fierce union backlash has derailed previous government attempts at shaking up Argentina’s archaic labor system, widely seen as among the most costly to companies in Latin America.
“Members of Congress, hear this message: Voting against working people does not come without consequences,” the General Confederation of Labor, Argentina’s largest trade union group, wrote on social media, alongside photos showing Buenos Aires deserted because of the strike. “Jobs are not up for negotiation; hard-won gains are not raffle prizes to be given away.”
The show of force from labor unions comes as economic frustration simmers. Milei’s drastic campaign to slash the size of the state has brought fiscal stability to a nation once plagued by runaway inflation, but struggled to address stubborn unemployment, stagnant wages and sluggish growth.
“To grow, we need more than just labor legislation. We need infrastructure, energy, universities,” Argentine lawmaker Pablo Outes said, criticizing the uneven economic recovery under Milei even as he endorsed the labor bill. “Milei’s model is failing. It is showing cracks.”
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