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A balance without euphoria: the CGT could not meet its final objective despite transportation limitations - Infobae
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Un balance sin euforia: la CGT no pudo cumplir su objetivo final pese a las limitaciones en el transporte
Para la central obrera, el paro fue “contundente”, aunque no logró conmover al Gobierno para que acepte negociar sus medidas. Ahora, el debate interno se profundiza: algunos quieren esperar y otros presionan por un paro de 36 horas
www.infobae.com
May 09, 2024
For the labor union, the strike was “forceful”, although it failed to move the Government to agree to negotiate its measures. Now, the internal debate deepens: some want to wait and others are pushing for a 36-hour strike
By Ricardo Carpena
The senior staff of the CGT made a positive assessment of the second general strike against the government of Javier Milei
The CGT strike was felt, despite the fact that it had uneven compliance, but the CGT leadership could not fulfill its objective: to move the Government to modify its policies. The reactions of the main libertarian leaders to the second general strike against Javier Milei allow us to assume that the day after the union protest the official position will not change much .
“The Government must take note and reconfigure its adjustment policy, which is taking us to extremes,” said the co-head of the CGT Héctor Daer (Health) at the press conference in which an assessment of the force measure was taken. Curiously, there was no euphoria or expressions of joy among the leaders who were on stage in the Felipe Vallese room at the Azopardo 802 headquarters. The “forcefulness” of the strike that several union members highlighted was not noticeable in their faces or in their speech: Daer did not want to directly respond to criticism from Milei, Patricia Bullrich, José Luis Espert and Manuel Adorni, and even Pablo Moyano, affected by verbal incontinence, was more measured (a week ago, in the same place, he aroused the anger of the senators by talk about the “ghost of Banelco”).
The positive assessment of the strike made by the CGT tasted like relief (they were not clear about the degree of compliance of the workers) and also concern: the problem that now arises for the CGT leadership is how to continue. The dialogue sector knows that it cannot repeat strikes every month, although pressure is beginning to be felt from some leaders to move towards a 36-hour strike. The combative Rubén “Pollo” Sobrero verbalized it in the left-wing march for Labor Day and, from a distance, they already consider it as a possible variant in the hard wing of the CGT.
Despite the strike, some shopping malls, supermarkets and businesses opened in the city of Buenos Aires (Photo Franco Fafasuli)
A handful of union members spoke about that topic on the fourth floor of the CGT before the press conference began. “Well, now let's use our heads; Enough of the strikes,” said a front-line leader. Another complained: “But Milei makes us stop because she doesn't let up an inch.” The internal debate in the unions about the future of the struggle plan will begin next week, but the fate of the Base Law and the fiscal package in the Senate will have a decisive impact .
For the majority of the CGT there will be no way for the President to back down and agree to negotiate if his big legislative bets do not fail . That's what happened, they remember, when he belatedly discovered the enormous impact of the university march. “Milei is intelligent and we must confront him with intelligence,” was one of the phrases heard privately at the CGT. Along the same lines, a prominent leader warned: “We have to take care of the strike tool. “We can’t wear it down.”
In the staging chosen by the CGT during the press conference, it seemed a suggestive sign of openness that some leaders who monopolize the main places and the use of the word, such as Daer and Moyano, gave space and voice to others of his colleagues such as Carlos Acuña (service stations), Andrés Rodríguez (UPCN), Sergio Romero (UDA) and Julio Piumato (judicial). It seemed like a reaction to the criticism that the CGT's “small table” receives from the rest of its colleagues because “between 5 or 6 leaders solve everything and do not ask anyone's opinion.”
Héctor Daer, with Pablo Moyano, before starting the press conference at the CGT
Within the labor union, there are those who imagine that the Government will finally agree to convene the Cegetista leadership again to resume dialogue. The first - and last - official meeting took place on April 10 at the Casa Rosada. Since then, the link was maintained through the reserved contacts of the CGT with the presidential advisor Santiago Caputo , although the role of interlocutor of the Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, with the union members remains. Even the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, began to have more meetings with the union leadership: last week, for example, she received the four teaching unions of the CGT and promised to call them shortly to the national union of the sector. Other similar meetings are kept secret.
The Government did not make any additional effort to try to have this Thursday's strike lifted, although it is true that it gave some nods in that regard. For example, it agreed to cut the labor reform included in the Bases Law almost to the CGT's size and made its position more flexible of not standardizing joint ventures that exceeded the inflation forecast (now, it accepts the same salary increases if the final figures are rearranged to camouflage them, all a tradition of governments of different types).
Now, after its second general strike in five months, the CGT hopes that the next move will be Milei's. Not only does he expect it, but it is also what his dialogue faction needs , which seeks to avoid the intolerant postcard of the 13 general strikes against Raúl Alfonsín and, furthermore, wants to escape from the irreducible dynamics of the combative and left-wing union factions. From there, during these hours, the slogans in favor of a 36-hour strike arise. The moderates of the CGT fear that in this radicalized focus of their own ranks and the two CTA, destituent ideas will germinate.
Pablo Moyano was more measured at the CGT press conference
The challenge is how to continue after this measure of force that was felt, but that, in practice, did not achieve the objective of moving the Government. The final photo even relativized the high compliance with the protest that the CGT talks about because there were shopping malls, supermarkets and businesses open, in addition to an intense movement of cars. Daer even admitted that there were buses, “but without passengers.”
“The success (of the strike) does not make us happy because it does not make us happy to take a measure of force,” Daer admitted this afternoon, far from the triumphalist tone. A measure of force does not have an end in itself, but rather the end of establishing support for a precise and clear claim that was the agenda that led us to take this measure. A country and development project for the future is under discussion.”
Another dilemma that the Cegetista strategy contains: that project that “is under discussion” is the one that the majority of Argentines voted for in the ballot last November 19. A little over 5 months ago.
