Japan - July 10 2024

Statement of the the revolutionary Marxists of the JRCL-RMF of Japan on Argentina

Workers fighting against the new president Milei’s offensives to destroy trade unions

General strikes fought out twice

On May 9th, Argentine workers went through with a second general strike in opposition to the new government of Miley, who calls himself a ‘libertarian’. Following the 12-hour strike in January, the trade union center CGT (General Confederation of Labour), which has over 4.4 million members, and the CTA (Argentine Labour Center), which is mainly made up of public sector employees, had proposed a 24-hour strike this time.

Production halted at many companies, especially in the mining and manufacturing sectors; airline, railroad, bus and port operations also halted, and hospitals, schools, banks and supermarkets went on strike.

Milei took over the presidency from his predecessor by advocatng ‘an end to the peso and a move to a dollar-based economy’ and the ‘abolition of the central bank’. The first thing he did after taking office in December last year was to drastically devalue the peso against the dollar by about 50 per cent, abolish price subsidies for fuel and other items, and halve the number of government ministries and agencies, thereby greatly reducing both staff and budgets. Working people, who had already been suffering from the ongoing inflation, have immediately been thrown into hyperinflation, which is several times higher than the previous inflation. Prices of necessities such as food and rent have now soared by more than 300 per cent (as of April, compared to the same month last year). The number of poor people who are struggling to make ends meet has suddenly increased, and the proportion of these people has easily exceeded half of the population, reaching the worst level since the beginning of this century. Working people are suffering and angry.

The IMF praised Milei’s high-handed ‘reforms’ for being ‘better than it had expected’ and decided to provide $800 million in aid. This is impermissible. This man, on taking office, retracted the decision made by the previous administration to ‘join in the BRICS’, and instead, flew to the United States many times to demonstrate his pro-American stance.

The ‘libertarian’ rushing headlong towards anti-working class ‘reforms’

At the end of December last year, Milei submitted to the National Assembly a bill (commonly known as the ‘omnibus bill’) that compiles and bundles together several hundred legal revisions across a range of fields, including the economy, society, and administration, calling it the ‘foundation for the reconstruction of the Argentine economy’. Its contents are as follows:

(1) All public spending by the state, including education, social security, living support, public works and public investment, shall be abolished or drastically reduced.
(2) The abolition of laws that impede ‘free markets’ and ‘free trade’. The abolition of the state’s protection of domestic resources, such as beef, wheat, rare metals and oil, as well as restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland.
(3) Privatization of state-owned enterprises, including aviation, railways, radio and television, and water supply.
(4) Tax reform.
(5) Reorganization of labour-related systems, that is, the abolition of ‘regulations’ on employment and working conditions, and the deprivation of the right of collective bargaining, the right to strike, and other trade union rights.

It is clear that the main pillar of the ‘reforms’ of Milei, who hates trade unions as he considers them to be an ‘infringement of individual liberty’, is to incapacitate trade unions and destroy them.

The Peronist Party (Partido Justicialista), which is descended from erstwhile President Juan Domingo Perón who used to reign the country in the 1940s and 1950s under the banner of Argentine nationalism and the protection of workers but was ousted in a military coup orchestrated by the CIA, continues to hold power today, almost alternately with pro-American right-wing parties.

The CGT and CTA, both of which are led by union bureaucrats affiliated with this party, still place nearly half of all workers under their umbrella.

Argentine workers rose up in opposition to Milei’s coercive ‘reforms’, which sought to get all of (1) through (5) approved by the National Assembly en bloc.

On January 24th, the CGT and CTA went on a general strike in opposition to Milei’s ‘reforms’, filling the capital Buenos Aires with millions of workers. Milei’s ‘omnibus bill’ was once approved by the National Assembly. As soon as the individual items were discussed, however, conflict arose and the bill was immediately sent back to the committee (at the beginning of February). After all, Milei’s party is a tiny minority in both the Lower House and the Upper House.

Over the next three months, Milei and his henchmen repeated negotiations and deals with the opposition Peronist Party and other small parties calling themselves ‘left’, as well as with right-wing parties that were in coalition with Milei but were not necessarily in agreement. In this way, the revised ‘omnibus bill’, which had been cut by about half, was finally approved by the Lower House at the end of April. This man, who thought he could use similar threats and appeasement again to get the bill passed by the Upper House, laid bare his ambition to sign it into action by the end of May. On the day before the May 9th general strike, which was to be carried out under the slogan ‘No Pasaran’, he arrogantly declared, ‘I will not stop.’

The union bureaucrats laying their hopes on a parliamentary deal

On the other hand, the corrupt leadership of the CGT and CTA felt a growing sense of crisis when they realized that the central focus of Milei’s ‘reforms’ were the destruction and elimination of trade unions, in other words, the denial of their status as trade union bureaucrats. They breathed a sigh of relief when the National Assembly’s approval of the ‘omnibus bill’ was thwarted in February, and have since been busy revising the bill. They filed lawsuits in court and tried to use judicial pressure to organize members of the National Assembly and have them delete or revise the relevant clauses.

Meanwhile, price increases showed no sign of stopping. Workers, both regular and non-regular, continued to be subjected to dismissals and layoffs. They were demanding an ‘immediate wage increase’ and fighting desperately against ‘layoffs’. Pressured by these workers from below, the CGT and CTA bureaucrats organized and carried out that general strike on May 9th. It was, however, a quiet strike, with no central meetings nor demonstrations. This, as we must say, symbolizes the fact that, for those Peronist union bureaucrats, the May 9th strike was not intended to crush the reactionary attack of Milei’s ‘reforms’ with the power of the working class, but was merely a means of putting pressure on the National Assembly to request partial revisions and deletions of the ‘omnibus bill’.

Fight resolutely by overcoming the treacheries of the existing trade union bureaucrats!

As head of a minority government, Milei was obliged to make some concessions regarding the contents of the ‘omnibus bill’. The revised ‘omnibus law’, which was approved by the Lower House on April 30th, contains many amendments and deletions, including provisions that eliminate the right of trade unions to strike and that of collective bargening.

Even so, the fundamentals of the plot to carry out those ‘reforms’ from the ‘libertarianist’ point of view have not wavered in the slightest. Penalties against companies that do not regularize non-regular workers have been abolished. Although the number of state-run enterprises to be privatized has been reduced, the decision has been made to privatize major leading state-run corporations that are concerned with social infrastructure, such as airlines, railways and water supply, and that employ many workers. This privatization process is set to begin soon.

It is quite clear that workers from former state-run enterprises and public service workers of various occupational categories will be thrown out on the street all at once, with no choice but to eke out a meager living through non-regular employment under wretched working conditions.

Even though the CGT and CTA trade union bureaucrats ordered the May 9th general strike, they made no attempt to organize rallies or demonstrations. Even though the ‘right to organize’ and ‘right to strike’ could be maintained as legal text, if one abandons organizing workers and strengthening them as a class, as the subject who exercises these rights, they will immediately be ‘rights reduced to mere form’. In the face of Milei’s attacks, the CGT bureaucrats are thus destroying the foundations of their trade unions themselves.

Before the May 9th general strike, the members of the FLTI issued a call: ‘Let's take this general strike into our own hands, into the hands of workers themselves!’ By denouncing those self-proclaimed ‘Trotskyists’ who are corrupted and have become part of the established system, the FLTI says, ‘We’ve had enough of them making workers subordinate to negotiations in the den of thieves, i.e. Parliament!’ ‘Let's set up headquarters for a natiowide struggle, which will unify the ranks of workers by overcoming the bureaucrats who are binding the working class to Peronism!’

Even though the CGT leadership called for no rallies nor demonstrations, many workers militantly fought out the May 9th general strike in their workplaces and communities; they are continuing to fight against Milei’s ‘reforms’ to this day. They are all the more ablaze with anger.

(This is the English translation of the article appeared in Kaihoh No. 2822, issued on 10th June 2024)

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