A-Infos (en) Argentina, FAR: SHOW AND CHAINSAW FROM ABOVE, POVERTY AND LAYOUTS AT BELOW (FAR Position, May 2024) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We are attending the 5th month of Milei's government and we clearly find 
a revival of the 90s, with the script of the Chicago School, with an 
abrupt process of economic deregulation, emptying of the public sector, 
and social indices that are already beginning to be catastrophic . You 
don't have to be an economist to notice that the reduction to one digit 
of inflation was accompanied by a brutal cooling of the economy, where 
it is debated whether it is a recession or directly an economic 
depression of the magnitude of 98-2002. The slowdown in prices responds 
to nothing other than a process of scarcity and basic deprivation of the 
popular sectors throughout the country.

All this is reflected in numbers that show the seriousness of the 
situation. Poverty rose to 55% (according to the UCA report), while an 
abrupt drop in employment is already observed in industry, services and 
the public sector. Analysts speak of an "escalation" of unemployment, 
which in a few months will reach double digits, a result similar to that 
of Menemism. Since Milei took office, it is stipulated that there has 
been a loss of 100,000 jobs in the private sector of industry and 
services, the same in construction and 30,000 in the public sector 
(national, provincial and municipal), according to different estimates - 
although Milei claims to have fired 50,000 employees in the national 
administration alone. Transfers to the provinces were cut, public works 
were stopped, the salaries of retirees were liquidated, as well as the 
salaries of the public and private sectors. With the approval of the IMF 
and North American imperialism, this financial bubble benefited the same 
people as always: bondholders and other financial speculators, and the 
large transnationals.

But this scythe to those below came accompanied by a show. As a 
distraction, we highlight the diplomatic outbursts against the Spanish 
Government and a recital by the president himself at Luna Park. The 
latter made us remember the Riojan's entertainment forays in the 90's. 
But the most serious thing about the show perhaps has to do with the 
setup put together by the Government and the mainstream media, who 
managed to place the judicialization of social references on the "public 
agenda", putting the magnifying glass on the consequences of the 
administration of the famine in Argentina, scandalized by the 
organizational practices of social movements, and not by those 
responsible who generated such structural poverty.

In this framework, the Bases Law and the fiscal package, approved in 
deputies, but blocked in the senate, are blocked, among other reasons 
due to the context of conflict generated in the majority of the 
provinces, as well as due to the inconsistency of the Large Investment 
Incentive Regime (RIGI), indiscriminate money laundering and the new 
wave of privatizations. Let us remember that the Bases Law, a close 
relative of the DNU and the first Bases Law, constitutes an accelerated 
attempt at deregulation and flexibility at the extreme of the economy 
and social relations, a free path to the scrapping of common goods, an 
attack on the small margins of regional sovereignty and an unprecedented 
advance against worker rights and union organization. This is how the 
Executive at this point shows desperation to accelerate the approval of 
the Law and close ranks with the dialogue opposition in the May Pact, 
which at this point is dilated and with no indication of being finalized 
in the coming weeks.

After the momentary fall of this agreement, the truce between the 
central government and the provinces came to an end, while conflicts 
derived from the adjustment in fund transfers are already beginning to 
emerge. However, the response to the growing social conflict does not 
admit any cracks between the political class. In addition to local 
repression and the sending of federal forces (as in the case of 
Misiones), the direct action measures of the unions are punished with 
discounts for days of unemployment, removal of presenteeism and threats 
of removal of union status. In Santa Fe, the provincial State imposed 
the discount on striking public sector workers, as happened in the 
recent inter-union mobilizations in the provincial capital.

Although in Argentina, after the last general strike, an escalation of 
conflicts and resistance at the national level seemed to be insinuated, 
it finally gave way to a scenario of sectoral, regional and 
fundamentally provincial resistance. At the sector level, the strikes of 
the Oil and Maritime Federation (SOMU) and the Confederation of 
Transport Unions (CATT) against the restitution of the income tax to 
workers and for salary recomposition stand out at the beginning of May.

The Health Union (ATSA) is also in the middle of a fight plan in the 
main private clinics. Another large-scale measure was the recent 
national teachers' strike, coordinated by the regional CTERA and SADOP, 
and the mobilizations of unions linked to universities (FATUN and the 
two CONADUH) together with Student Centers, all in defense of education. 
public. The state organizations promoted by ATE also continue to 
mobilize against layoffs in national organizations and in defense of 
salaries. Overall, large concentrations of all these sectors are 
expected, when the new Bases Law is actually discussed in the Senate, 
which could generate a framework similar to that of the treatment of 
Macri's Pension Reform. We at FAR believe that the popular camp must 
take advantage of this pivotal moment to corrode the status quo of this 
brutal adjustment towards those below.

However, it should be noted that the greatest source of resistance seems 
to come from the provinces. Health workers, judicial workers, bus 
drivers, provincial and municipal state workers stand out as organized 
sectors to stop the drain on workers, in a month as sensitive as the day 
before the bonus payment. The Judiciaries of Mendoza are already in 
their 3rd week of strike while the UTA drivers continue to be struck for 
pay in San Juan and Santiago del Estero. In Jujuy there is an important 
fight on the part of the indigenous communities against the Emergency 
Law - which threatens their lands - and fundamentally against the 
anti-popular agreement of the provincial government with the Israeli 
company Mekorot, for the monopoly of the administration of something so 
fundamental like water.

But the most resonant case has to do with the town in Misiones - which 
already has a contagion effect in neighboring Corrientes. The teachers 
have been leading a protest for several weeks, among other things, 
against the permanent adjustment to the pocketbook and the precarious 
working conditions. After the start of the claim, other sectors have 
joined, such as health workers, park rangers, state workers, energy 
company workers and herbal producers. The latter, with a great tradition 
of struggle, are even guaranteeing roadblocks throughout the province. 
But the paradigmatic case has to do with the use that the police forces 
made of this context, promoting a barracking for increased salaries, 
which was well received by sectors of mobilized workers. In essence, we 
must not ignore that in Argentina, in some small and sparsely populated 
provinces, the coexistence of the personnel of the repressive forces - 
and their families - with the rest of the community is very close, 
generating a special and different coexistence framework. of the large 
urban centers, to the point that the military also continues to be "just 
another neighbor." This dynamic led to the police riot in Misiones 
joining the intersectoral fight as one more actor in that conflict 
against a "common enemy," the provincial government. In this sense, we 
were able to hear statements from sectors of the missionary police in 
combative tones and "solidarity" with the unions in struggle. Beyond the 
astonishment that this may generate, we cannot forget what the police 
institution represents in the province of Misiones, with the historical 
persecution of the herbalists and the MAM (Missionary Agrarian 
Movement), with its actions in the last military dictatorship, with the 
brutal repressions of cooperative members, teachers and other organized 
sectors of the province in recent years. They say that one button is 
enough as an example, if we look at the repression of the Rovira police 
against the occupation of the legislature by teachers and health workers.

From FAR we highlight once again the importance that the organized 
popular sectors must strengthen and deepen the sectoral fights and, 
mainly, the regional and provincial multisectoral fights as the basis 
and impulse of a general plan of struggle against this unprecedented 
advance. The unity of popular organizations in this context makes a 
difference. Maintaining the street and expanding the unit seem to be the 
watchwords of this moment. The stop to Milei's ultra-liberal adjustment 
and its obscene spectacle can only be led by unions, environmental 
assemblies, native communities, student organizations and other sectors 
in struggle. Our fighting position as anarchist militants is there.

UP LXS WHO FIGHT!

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