The national government relativizes but knows that this Thursday the strike launched by the CGT together with the two CTA will be more than important. Throughout the day, different unions were fulfilling the old tradition of announcing their support for the general strike that will paralyze the country on May 9. For now, the unions that bring together trains, buses and subways have already warned that they are part of the force measure. It is important, after all, they are the ones who guarantee the paralysis of the movement of people. This is what allowed the triumvir of the CGT, Pablo Moyano affirms that “the general strike is going to be forceful.” The other triumvir, Héctor Daer, said that it will be “a big stop”. The direct action measure, the second since the Javier Milei government took office, also aims to serve as a direct “message” to the senators to reject the projects of the Bases law and the fiscal package, which obtained half a sanction in Deputies.
“The general strike is a message to the senators of other blocks, in dialogue quotes, who have not yet decided. We demand that they do not vote on the Base Law,” said Moyano during an assembly of workers who belong to unions of the Argentine Confederation of Transport Workers. The CATT brings together unions such as truck drivers, railway service workers, taxi drivers, bus drivers and also those who depend on unions related to transport services and maritime work. It is a key area of the CGT when looking at the result of a general strike.
In any case, the CGT will not forget the political task that it began to carry out since Milei made the harmful DNU 70/2023 official. Just as in those summer months the Cegetista leadership visited deputies and senators to stop the DNU, which has the rejection of the Upper House, and the then omnibus law, now they repeat the strategy. This Wednesday starting at 4 p.m., Daer and Moyano will meet with the Senate Union for the Homeland interblock with the objective of confirming the rejection of the Bases project of all the senators that make up UxP.
The task in the Daer and Moyano Congress will not end there. They also plan to visit senators from blocs that were more open to the rejection of the Bases projects and fiscal package. This includes not only the radical Martín Lousteau but dissident Peronists such as Carlos “Camau” Espínola from Corrientes and Edgardo Kueider, from Entre Ríos. The first already showed his inclination to support libertarian projects.
In Tucumán, for example, the general secretary of ATE of that province, Jorge Flores, asked senators Juan Manzur and Sandra Mariela Mendoza to vote in favor of the projects as promoted by Governor Osvaldo Jaldo. The position of the regional CGT of Tucumán is different.
Although the union leaders ask the senators to reject the projects outright, it is also true that they emphasize the change in the working conditions of public employees, where the libertarian government intends to take away their stability and limit strikes.
The assemblies
On the way to the 9M strike, yesterday the aeronautical unions held assemblies to announce their repudiation of these projects and, above all, the rejection of the intended privatization of Aerolíneas Argentinas.
The force measure had already been announced and the company had even developed a contingency plan to reduce the impact on the flights of these assemblies. However, they clung to a phrase from the head of the Aeronautical Personnel Association (APA), Edgardo Llanos, to be horrified. The union leader said that “we are telling the senators that they are voting against their own interests, they are voting for the provinces to stop having airline flights every day.”
Meanwhile, the head of the pilots’ union, Pablo Biró, highlighted how destructive the open skies policy applied by the Milei government is “because it is an attack against national sovereignty.” Along these lines, he warned that “the heavens opened with Chile, with Ecuador and next week they will be with Peru. And no one, absolutely no one from politics, neither from the current government, nor from the opposition, nor from the previous government, nobody said anything”.
The accessions
One of the traditions that the CGT has is that a few days before the measure of force the unions that make it up announce their membership. It is a way to show the government of the day the forcefulness of the direct action measure.
On this occasion, the transport unions went one by one to report their support for the strike. The railway unions did it and also the bus drivers gathered at UTA. Meanwhile, the Subway workers announced that they are bowing to the measure of force from their labor union, the Workers’ CTA.
The Argentine Union of Rural Workers and Stevedores (UATRE), led by José Voytenco, joined the strike. In a statement they stated that it is necessary to stop the Base laws and the fiscal package in the Senate because they are regulations that go against the interests of the workers. The Federation of Workers of the Oil Industrial Complex expressed along the same lines, warning that they are joining the strike against Milei, which “governs for the richest people and punishes those of us who have formal jobs, informal jobs, and work cooperatives.” and to retirees”.
