The Buenos Aires government and the state unions will meet again next Tuesday. Although the official call that the union organizations received yesterday does not detail the reason for the call, everything indicates that in this “informal” meeting the discussion of the salary increase that the Province would have for the month that has just started will begin.
The call for a meeting at the headquarters of the Ministry of Economy even surprised the union representatives who at this time were preparing notes to demand the resumption of the joint venture.
The latest agreement came last month, when the Province gave both state employees and teachers a 9.5 per cent raise. That same percentage was later transferred to the judiciary.
The negotiation came preceded by the meeting that representatives of different union organizations had held with the Minister of Economy, Pablo López. The official described on that occasion the difficult financial situation that the Province is going through and suggested that it would be difficult for Axel Kicillof’s administration to sustain a rate of salary increases in line with inflation.
Therefore, the 9.5 percent offer did not surprise the unions. Nor was it below the 11 percent that marked the March cost of living index reported by INDEC.
López, yesterday, may have gone down that path of warnings again. He published a report on the fall in Buenos Aires revenue on his X account. “The tax resources of the Province reflect the enormous drop in economic activity. In April, provincial revenue fell 4.5% and co-participation plummeted 20.6%, in real terms,” he said.
And he added: “The problem is not fiscal, but rather an economy that is contracting at an unprecedented rate.”
López, who had made a harsh description about the financial situation of the Province before the union representatives approximately a month ago, yesterday delved deeper into the issue. “The national government is deliberately driving a recession. With fiscal arguments, paradoxically it destroys revenue. They say they are suffocating the provinces, but in reality they are attacking the rights to health, education and security of Argentines.”
The unions, for the moment, are expectant. Far, furthermore, from motorizing protests. They highlight, despite the complex scenario, that the increases granted by the Province so far this year were still barely above inflation.
“Faced with a price index of 51.6 percent in the first three months of the year, so far in 2024 the Buenos Aires government has ordered an improvement of 51.7 percent with respect to the closing of the 2023 parity as a result of the accumulated in January, February, March and April,” they say.
In just under two weeks the INDEC will release last month’s inflation. The national government is preparing to celebrate a new drop that would place it around 9 percent, according to various consulting firms. That number will surely weigh on the eventual official offer.
Although the call that emerged is for the state unions, it is estimated that the Axel Kicillof administration will follow the same temperament with the unions that make up the Teaching Unity Front, judicial and medical.
The first approximation on Tuesday then leaves a week to finish rounding up an offer. The unions intend that any improvement agreed upon be received by the workers with the May salaries that are collected in the first days of June. And for it to be settled, it has to be defined in the middle of the month.
