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Politics The CGT doubts moving forward with a second general strike against Milei and discusses a strategy of attrition on all fronts - Infobae

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The CGT doubts moving forward with a second general strike against Milei and discusses a strategy of attrition on all fronts - Infobae

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February 18, 2024

The leadership of the labor union will meet this week to unify criteria and resolve how they are going to confront the Government's measures. Accumulated annoyance and a “guerrilla war” to weaken the ruling party. The social works factor

By Facundo Chaves

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The CGT small board will meet this week to define the strategy to confront Milei on all fronts

“If you do a general strike in 45 days, what do you do in 90 days, a bombing?” The question was asked last month by one of the three most important leaders of Unión por la Patria to the leadership of the CGT. It was at a reserved barbecue that they shared after the measure of force on January 24 and translated the criticism generated by the premature use of the ultima ratio that the unions have to confront a government. Less than a month after that strike and the political cost that the labor union had to pay, the union members are analyzing another fighting strategy in the face of the worsening of the crisis and the latest measures promoted by Javier Milei .

In the union world they assume that the relationship with the Executive Branch is broken and there is no return. In this logic they understand the failure of the Minimum Wage Council, the imposition of unilateral changes in labor legislation, and also the decision to advance social works with a policy of deregulation and free competition that, although it may have benefits for registered workers , the unions assimilate it as an offensive against their interests.

There are several ideas, beyond the fact that a combative sector is willing to launch a second national strike at any cost. An alternative generated more consensus at this time and, in fact, did not exclude the most extreme. “Guerrilla war” was baptized in dialogue with Infobae by one of the unionists who knows well the surface and also the subsoils that connect the unions with politics.

What does it mean? Among other things, support forceful measures decided by sectors and activities that are affected by their own unresolved demands, mainly salary increases. They are chapters of the same sequence derived from an economy in crisis, which bears the consequences of the draconian fiscal adjustment and the stabilization plan that Milei applied as soon as he took office to get back on track an economy that was accumulating imbalances, regulations and inconsistencies. On the horizon looms the train strike that La Fraternidad announced for next Wednesday - which will surely have a mandatory conciliation -, another in the making by the groups in the AMBA that could be announced by the UTA, protests over the paralysis of construction, and the imminent and almost inevitable teaching conflict.

The sectoral strikes and street protests are part of this general strategy of attrition, which also includes efforts before politics to ensure that Congress rejects the DNU that Milei signed to deregulate the economy. And also, the deepening of the judicial battle against the latest measures, which for them affect workers' rights and for the Government collapses businesses and privileges. A battle on all fronts.

The Cegetista leadership will define between tomorrow and Tuesday the call for a small table meeting, where the heavyweights of the union world come together when lines of action must be defined. The general secretaries of the CGT Héctor Daer (Health), Pablo Moyano (Truckers), Carlos Acuña (Service Stations), but also Gerardo Martínez (UOCRA), Andrés Rodríguez (UPCN), José Luis Lingeri (Health Works) have seats there. , Mario “Paco” Manrique (SMATA), among others.

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Armando Cavalieri, Andrés Rodríguez, Héctor Daer, Gerardo Martínez, Pablo Moyano, Carlos Acuña and José Luis Lingeri, at the CGT meeting that took place at the UOCRA
At the top of the agenda are salaries and the signal that the national government gave last week, through the Secretary of Labor, Omar Yasín, in the Minimum Living and Mobile Wage Council. There, a logic was applied that does not recognize precedents and that put union members on alert. The business sector warned that it is not in a position to offer increases, because the economy faces a strongly recessionary period, with a severe contraction in activity. At that tripartite table, the unions asked for an increase above 80%.

Beyond the fact that the Minimum Living and Mobile Wage has limited application, officials did not want to validate a percentage that would later spill over into other negotiations. Yasín drafted a document in which he stated the lack of agreement between the parties and avoided, for now, making the decision established by the legislation: awarding, putting a number. It was not a unilateral decision. It was the administrative translation of a political decision of the President of the Nation.

“We don't like setting minimum prices. That is an issue that has to be addressed by workers with their employers. "I don't believe that a politician can determine a decree by hand (...) Am I going to issue a decree setting a price?" Milei said in a radio interview, where he repeated the same argument to remove the national government from the parity. teacher.

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The last union protest, which took the claims to the Court Palace

For this reason, in the CGT they talk about a climate of protest and mobilization here and there. And eventually to repeat the mobilization that they did on December 27 at the Palace of Courts and that they consider was important for Justice to agree with them and annul the labor reform that Milei included in the DNU, which, in any case, continues. current. These are some of the ideas that unionists are analyzing to confront the Government.
 
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