This Wednesday, April 3, is a day of mobilization in the Argentine public service, while last week, the government of Javier Milei announced that the contracts of 15,000 civil servants which expired on March 31 would not be renewed.
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From our correspondent in Buenos Aires,
With this massive wave of layoffs, the ultraliberal president deepens his plan “ chain saw “. Javier Milei is obsessed with the idea of restoring public accounts to balance, at any cost, and he is convinced that the State is the cause of all the problems in his country.
The Argentine president repeatedly repeats that he has already laid off 50,000 civil servants, even though the official figures available indicate that the number of layoffs was closer to 10,000 until recently. What is certain, however, is that since last week, thousands of civil servants have learned of their dismissal. According to the presidential spokesperson, we are talking about 15,000 people being made redundant, while 55,000 contracts are currently under review.
According to the report carried out by the ATE union, these dismissals do not seem to result from a methodology linked to seniority. This is evidenced by the dismissal of Lucas Berengua, a technician from the national meteorological service who was dismissed last week after twenty-one years of good and loyal service.
Read alsoArgentina: massive layoffs of civil servants continue
Dozens of National Social Security Agency offices closed
One case among many others which, taken together, cause the dismantling of the Argentine state. This is what ATE general secretary Rodolfo Aguiar denounces: “ Behind each layoff, there is a tragedy for the worker and his or her family who find themselves destitute. But faced with this massive wave of layoffs, these individual tragedies become a social tragedy, because behind each civil servant position that disappears, there is a public policy that is dismantled. Public services will be severely affected and, ultimately, it is the population who will lose rights. »
And the best illustration of what Rodolfo Aguiar is talking about is surely Anses, the national social security agency. Dozens of the organization’s outreach offices have been closed, including in remote areas, and 1,300 of its employees have been fired since Javier Milei came to power. In reaction to this wave of layoffs, the ATE union is therefore calling for a day of mobilization this Wednesday. The union calls on all dismissed employees, but also those still on the job, to enter their workplaces in a massive and coordinated manner this Wednesday, to possibly peacefully occupy public buildings if the government does not respond to their demands.
A method of mobilization already used under the presidency of Mauricio Macri, a few years ago, in a tense context, recalls Rodolfo Aguiar: “ The federal police had been deployed to block the entrance to the ministries, with instructions to only allow those who had not been fired to pass. We do not rule out the possibility that this scenario will repeat itself this Wednesday, and we will hold President Milei responsible for any violence or repression that he could order and which would be deplorable. »
Towards a new general strike?
This sectoral mobilization could lead to a broader protest movement. In any case, this is what Rodolfo Aguiar and the ATE union want: for the union centers to call for a new general strike, like last January 24. “ We must repeat a new January 24 in Argentina, because civil servants are not the only ones to suffer. The government announced that it would pay in several installments the miserable pensions received by retirees. Consumption is collapsing and businesses are going out of business. Traders and SMEs, too, are suffering from the government’s economic policy. We need a new mobilization that unifies all these demands. »
But despite this desire to bring together discontent, the union movement still remains divided on the issue. While the CTA, the second central in the country to which the ATE is affiliated, is pushing for a new general strike, certain sectors of the CGT, the first union, think that at present, such a measure would be hasty and counterproductive.
Read alsoArgentina: Javier Milei’s austerity shock plunges the country into recession