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Argentine President Javier Milei has survived a number of tests since coming to office. First, reigning in uncontrolled hyper-inflation, the legacy of decades of socialist Peronist rule. Inflation in what was once the most prosperous country in the world has tumbled from 300 per cent to a decadal low of 30 per cent.
The next great test was the mid-term elections late last year. Milei and his La Libertad Avanza party won the mid-terms decisively.
Now comes his next great test: taking on the big unions.
Argentina pushed closer on Thursday to approving labor reforms that have triggered clashes between workers and police in the streets outside Congress.
The reforms, a pet project of budget-slashing President Javier Milei, would make it easier to hire and fire workers, reduce severance pay, limit the right to strike and restrict holiday rights.
Critics say the move will make jobs more precarious in a country where almost 40 per cent of workers lack formal employment contracts.
The Senate voted 42–30 early Thursday to pass the reform, which will now head to the Chamber of Deputies for approval.
As is inevitable when trying to break the stranglehold of powerful unions, violence is never far away.
It came a day after demonstrators in the capital Buenos Aires hurled stones and bottle bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
A few dozen people, many hooded and masked, clashed with police blocking access to the parliament, as lawmakers inside the building debated the plans […]
Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva vowed that those responsible for Wednesday’s violence “will be identified” and punished appropriately.
“They are dozens of members of leftist groups who acted in an organized manner, with premeditated violence and improvised weapons to... sow chaos. They will pay,” she said on X.
The libertarian Milei is determined to prise the yoke of crony labour red tape that only serves the interests of the leftist nomenklatura.
Milei has insisted that existing labor laws are too restrictive and discourage formal hiring. He wants the reforms adopted by March.
“Today we are here to decide whether we remain trapped in a statist, corporate and patronage-based system that has driven away investment, destroyed jobs and impoverished millions of Argentinians,” Joaquin Benegas Lynch, a ruling party senator, told Wednesday’s debate.
And those ‘workers’?
But for protester Federico Pereira, a 35-year-old sociologist, “with this exploitative labor reform, they are only thinking about the wealthy. Those who benefit are the bosses.”
Ah, yes, because a sociologist knows just what it’s like to sweat alongside the horny-handed sons of toil.
