Top Argentine labor group pickets over wages, challenging Macri
Workers represented by Argentina's main labor federation, the CGT, gathered in Buenos Aires on Tuesday to protest job cuts and pay raises that have not kept up with inflation, challenging the government seven months ahead of key congressional elections.
The one-day picket, which attracted tens of thousands of workers, was the first march by the CGT labor federation this year. It came amid a two-day teachers' strike that on Monday delayed the opening of school after the Southern Hemisphere summer holidays.
Mauricio Macri became Argentina's president in late 2015, vowing to jump-start the economy through fiscal reforms aimed at attracting sorely-needed investment. But the promised wave of foreign direct investment has instead resulted in a 50% plunge in same, as inflation doubled from 23% as of November 2015 to 45% a year later and budget deficits - despite austerity measures that have led to massive utility rate and fare hikes - jumped by 62%.
While now moderating, inflation remained at 38% as of January. The Central Bank hopes to cut that rate to 17%; private economists, however, project a rate of around 25%.
Employers meanwhile have been hard-pressed to raise pay packages in line with inflation while Macri's push to cut business costs has prompted layoffs in the public and private sectors totaling around 200,000 in 2016 alone. "The layoffs have continued and deepened since January," CGT spokesman Julio Piumato told Reuters. "There has been a big loss in wages. We hope the government changes its policies, which are creating poverty."
The discontent comes at a bad time for Macri, who needs his right-wing Cambiemos ('Let's Change') political coalition to do well in October's mid-term elections in order to keep pushing his economic reforms through Congress and position himself for re-election in 2019.
Teachers, some of whom joined Tuesday's CGT march, demand salary increases to make up for the purchasing power lost to inflation last year; the SUTEBA Buenos Aires Province teachers' union, the nation's largest, want a 35% pay hike for 2017. Governor María Eugenia Vidal, a close Macri ally, has offered them an 18% raise.
The dispute took a sinister turn on Saturday when SUTEBA leader Roberto Baradel received detailed death threats against his children, followed by the controversial decision by right-wing talk host Eduardo Feinmann to display photos of Baradel's daughter and two sons. Baradel called this a "mafia-like message."
At: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/top-argentine-labor-group-pickets-over-wages-challenging-macri-20170307-01163#ixzz4afv2y8on
