Argentina’s trade unions will not go back to the 1990’s

Argentina’s trade unions will not go back to the 1990’s
Alicia Castro 12 February 2016

Union leaders who remain loyal to the workers will question Macri’s policies, and will confront the government through the union membership both in the streets and in the National Congress

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A few years ago, at the beginning of the nineties, a Peronist government began to implement an economic model that we call “neoliberal” and which was openly inimical to the interests of workers.

We watched with frustration as President Carlos Saúl Menem dismantled the public sector by privatising and denationalising state-owned enterprises - assets belonging to the Argentine people - liberalised and deregulated the economy, and eliminated trade barriers to the point of practically destroying national industry and thereby putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work. The increase in the numbers of unemployed brought about a systematic and progressive reduction in salaries because, as we know, unemployment is labour’s great disciplinarian in that it forces workers to accept precarious conditions of employment. Retirees as well as workers suffered drastic reductions in their purchasing power and, as an inevitable consequence, the internal market contracted.

The new poor and the fatties

Thus began a new and painful period for those of us who had never before seen our compatriots sleeping rough in the streets and squares, and eating out of rubbish bins. Everything was crumbling before our eyes. A new class was born in Argentina: the “new poor”, middle class people who still had roof over their heads, but who lacked means to feed their children.

The number of citizens without work, prospects or even visibility multiplied - people who lacked political, social and trades union representation: the “excluded” whom the government treated as a mere statistic. Meanwhile, Argentina sank into international indebtedness and became the IMF’s star pupil. Both national and international commercial media as well as risk assessment organisations greeted the changes - just as they do now - as a sound and successful opening and modernisation of the economy. “Argentina returns to the world”, they proclaimed.

More:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/alicia-castro/argentina-s-trade-unions-will-not-go-back-to-1990-s