Strike on June 25, Announces General Confederation of Labour in Argentina

Finally, the country’s main trade union decided to use strike tactics after the meeting scheduled for this Tuesday with national government officials was suspended. The strike will take place for 24 hours and will be without street mobilization.

The Directive Council of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), announced the decision in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, it is a decision that different trade unions had been demanding. After canceling the meeting that they were going to have with labor minister, Jorge Triaca, the rumor of general strike grew.

“What we have decided is to declare June 25 a strike for 24 hours without mobilization,” said Hector Daer, one of the members of the CGT board. He also explained that “it is necessary to solve the problems of purchasing power”. “One of the worst causes of this economic debacle has to do with the decline of purchasing power, of wages and of consumption,” he added.

Daer also asked the government “a reflection” as it “vetoed the tariffs” and “posed a fiscal adjustment as the only economic horizon.” “We ask for a rectification of the economic policies and the policies that have to do with the administration of foreign trade that is destroying the whole industry,” he emphasized.

In this way the government’s attempts to avoid the protest were thwarted. Last week Daer, Carlos Acuña and Juan Carlos Schmid, members of the board of the CGT, had a meeting with Nicolás Dujovne, the Minister of the Treasury, Mario Quintana, the deputy head of cabinet, and Ernesto Leguizamón, second in the Ministry of Labor. From there the executive offered a 5% increase as “advance on future revision clauses”.

However, the increase would only be for trade unions whose workers are in the private sector and who have agreed to 15% rise, in relation to inflationary perspectives originally announced by the government.

After this negotiation, the trade union leaders withdrew, arguing that they would postpone the decision on the strike until Tuesday. Also, the CGT leadership reported that day, through a communiqué, five requests to the government: a rule to avoid firing and suspensions in the public and private sectors for six months; reopening of the trade union commissions that have been closed up until today; elimination of the base calculation of the income tax; return of funds corresponding to health expenses of social works and finally the agreement that there is no change in the current Employment Contract Act.