Argentina - June 17, 2024

Statement by LOI-CI / Democracia Obrera

With a huge scam by the bosses' parties, sustained by the betrayal of the union bureaucracy and a savage repression in the streets... the Bases Law was approved in the Senate

The Parliament gives full powers to Milei so that the USA can deepen their colonizing offensive and the worker slavery

With the approval of the Bases Bill in the Senate, the Parliament would grant Milei the concentration of powers he sought. With “extraordinary powers” in hand, he will no longer need to go through Congress.
The government, under the command of the US embassy and the IMF, will have free rein to shield a police regime that will allow it to defeat the working class and deepen the US offensive.
With this regime, the Bases Bill will be the “contract” of surrender of the nation and of worker slavery that the capitalists wanted. BlackRock, Rocca and the transnationals will be guaranteed the looting of lithium, minerals and Vaca Muerta shale for 30 years under a special “investment regime” (RIGI) and the privatization of state companies.
The labor reform will legalize the flexibility and precariousness already imposed de facto by the Fernandezes government on 60% of the working class with the complicity of the union bureaucracy, opening the way to finish their task: turning Argentina into a large “maquila” of slave workers.

Milei, the partner of Netanyahu and Zionism, is nothing more than the whip of US imperialism to deepen its colonization offensive on Argentina and all of Latin America.
The government's savage repression with tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons and 35 arrests is the expression that US imperialism needs the most reactionary regime possible to impose its plan.
The charges of “sedition” and “terrorism” are not “a DA Stornelli madness”. Milei and Bullrich applied what Espert had already anticipated, “jail or bullet” for the unemployed movement, the left-wing parties and all those who fight. The Videlista judges have already the leaders of the picketeer movement (unemployed associations), who have been testifying in Court, with a noose around their necks.
They have removed their democratic makeup and seek to impose a ferocious police regime, under the protection of the arch-reactionary Constitution of 1853-1994 that gives monarchical powers to the president.
In the streets, a change is beginning to be established in the relationship of forces the masses have been imposing since 2001. The government and the USA will not tolerate any more “picketing” and mobilizations of the “violent” that could jeopardize their looting plan. To do this, they have to defeat the vanguard of the working class pointed as “terrorists” so that no worker dares think of going out to fight in defense of their rights.

The bosses' parties set up a big trap in the Senate supported on the betrayal of the Peronist union bureaucracy

In the Senate, Peronism and all the employers' parties brought the vote to a 36 to 36 tie. UCR Party president Lousteau and the same UCR provided quorum and Peronism loaned three senators so that the Bill could be approved with the tie-breaking vote of vicepresident and Senate president Victoria Villarruel, thus giving a greater leading role to the Videlista wing of the government.
This farce was discussed beforehand in secret meetings with the USA ambassador Stanley, who supervises how the businesses are distributed and is the one who defines what share each bourgeois faction does or does not get.
The “opposition” role of Peronism to the Bases Bill was an imposture. The same ones that imposed the conditions of worker slavery and agreed with the IMF, allowing the emergence of Milei, were the guarantors for the bill to pass. Thus, they assure to the entire employers the legality to fire workers without mercy and have slave workers at their disposal without the obligation to employ them as perm staff..

This big trap would not have been consummated without the union bureaucracy, servant of the US embassy. In these months there were plenty of conditions to organize a general strike to respond to Milei's war, but the union bureaucracy gave the government a truce.
The tough struggles of state workers, teachers, metalworkers, the tire workers, the mobilizations of the picketeer movement, etc., which imposed two general strikes, were isolated by the union bureaucracy. Millions of precarized workers, contracted and unemployed workers were abandoned to their fate. The Kirchnerites Pignanelli from SMATA (Union of Mechanics and Related Automotive Transport) and Furlán from the UOM (Metallurgical Workers Union) did not blush of signing hundreds of furloughs, dismissals and handing over wages.
Thus, the union bureaucracy handed over the working class and led it to a policy of pressure on parliament in a class collaboration front in “defense of the national industry” with Peronism and the slavery employers producing for the internal market, a front where there is no place for demands for decent wages and work, or the fight for a general strike. A betrayal that meant, for example, that both the fired and suspended workers from SMATA marched under the program of the auto parts slavery employers' associations.
It all was a scam. Moyano told the workers that the Bases Bill could be defeated by the Senate, the most rancid and reactionary institution of the bourgeois regime, by pressing 4 or 5 “undecided” senators from the PJ, the PRO and the UCR to convince them to vote against.
They imposed on the working class the worst conditions to confront Milei's government. That is why on June 12, while CGT leaders Daer and Martínez were in Switzerland un an ILO meeting, Moyano teamsters and the two CTAs marched in scrawny columns to the Plaza del Congreso. They fled at 3 p.m., so allowing for Bullrich's savage repression.

The FIT-U, unfortunately, supported the class collaboration policy of the union bureaucracy

They stated that the Milei administration is a "weak" government and that it was possible to defeat it in parliament... What weakness are they talking about when the government is supported by US imperialism and all the bosses' parties, including the Kirchnerites?
The parliamentary left, with Bregman at the head, called for a great mobilization of pressure on parliament in the best “green tide” style (when abortion was legalized). They were looking for “sisterhoods” and “botherhoods” against the Bases Bill among the oligarchic senators. Now, although the bourgeoisie, as a product of a great struggle, can cede some democratic rights that do not compromise its pockets, it will never vote against the interests and property of the capitalists and US imperialism. That is why the government responded to the mobilization with a ferocious “tide” of tear gas, pepper spray, batons and arrests.

The demands of the entire working class are inseparable from the fight for the freedom of political prisoners

Given the worsening of the police regime that is keeping our comrades hostage, the immediate task is the fight for their freedom and the annulment of all judicial processes. With hostages in prisons we cannot fight. How can we face the layoffs with our comrades accused of “sedition” and “terrorism”? Any of us can be accused of being a “terrorist” for fighting!

The SUTNA (Unified Union of Argentine Tire Workers) and the picketeer movement that are being attacked with layoffs, persecution and repression can and must launch an urgent call to set up a National Struggle Committee together with the teachers, metalworkers, state workers and all sectors in struggle.
We must organize a great fight for the freedom of our detained comrades, unifying all the claims...
Enough of layoffs and suspensions! Minimum living and mobile salary of $1,350,000 pesos. Reduction of working hours without salary reduction. Everybody to permanent staff and under collective agreement.

Active general strike of 36 hours now! Let's march to the CGT and the CTA to impose it!
We must confront this infamous police regime of Milei and the USA... Down with the repressive protocol of (Home Security Minister) Bullrich! Let's stop the attack on workers' organizations! Dissolution of the police and repressive forces!

The fight is class against class. It is necessary to break with Peronism!
Submission to the PJ and the national bourgeoisie only deepens the division of the working class. Millions of exploited people hate Peronism and the union bureaucracy that destroyed their lives and jobs in the previous government.
We must build a program of class independence supported by assemblies, pickets, bodies of delegates and factory committees that set up unitary self-defense committees... Open the road to self-organization! To defeat the union bureaucracy and untie the hands of the working class to face the offensive of Milei and the USA. Enough of collaborationist bureaucracy!
Down with the DNU and the Bases Bill! Open the road to the revolutionary general strike to throw out Milei, the IMF and USA!