The ultraliberal government Javier Milei faces the second general strike this Thursday against its adjustment policies in a measure that showed half-empty streets with shops open but without customers, little public transportation and closed schools in the Argentine capital.
The main railway terminals were deserted, hundreds of flights were canceled and only a handful of bus lines operated.
Héctor Daer, leader of the majority General Confederation of Labor (CGT) that called the 24-hour strike, celebrated his “forcefulness” and said that the massive adhesion “It shows that the government has to take note.”
No mobilizations were carried out in Buenos Aires, but in provinces such as Córdoba, Río Negro and Chubut, columns of adherents marched with slogans against the “Bases Law” of economic reforms being discussed in the Senate.
Argentina is experiencing a strong economic recession, with inflation that is close to 290% year-on-year and a fiscal adjustment that allowed the first surplus since 2008 in the first quarter of the year, but with thousands of layoffs and the deterioration of salaries and retirements.
Industrial activity accentuated its collapse in March with a year-on-year drop in 21.2% and the building collapsed 42.2% in the same period, reported the Indec statistical institute.
The industrial contraction is the largest since April 2020, when activity was semi-paralyzed by the covid-19 pandemic.
“No one”
Alejandro Felippe is 59 years old and owns a popular cafeteria located in front of Parque Chacabuco, in a middle-class neighborhood of the Argentine capital.
“Whoever wanted to today raised blinds, but there are no customers, it doesn’t even look like a Sunday, I don’t justify what I spend on electricity,” he told AFP, leaning on a table. “Things are very bad, the protest is understandable, people buy the essentials,” he added.
Most of the open businesses were in the food sector, while the few buses that circulated were almost empty.
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Sitting on a park bench with her poodle dog, Griselda Ottamando, a 72-year-old retiree, regretted not being able to join. “But I contribute by not buying anything, we retirees are very bad, medicines cannot be bought, we need everyone’s solidarity,” said. It is the second strike against the Milei adjustment after the one carried out on January 24.
Protests are daily. The largest took place on April 23, when hundreds of thousands marched throughout the country in defense of the public university, threatened by lack of budget.
“Public opinion was willing to mobilize on certain issues that it considers to be collective goods and that are above political polarization,” political scientist Gabriel Vommaro told AFP.
No exports
In the ports of Rosario (Santa Fe, center-north), where the country exports the 80% of its agroindustrial production, there was no activity.
The strike occurs in the middle of the “coarse harvest”, the period of greatest production for this important global food exporter.
“Compliance is total, we are peacefully at the gates of each factory and all the ports are stopped”Martín Morales, a union leader from San Lorenzo, north of Rosario, told AFP.
In Buenos Aires, banks, schools and most fuel supply stations did not provide service and garbage collection was not carried out.
The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, asked the population to “go out to work”, in an improvised press conference at the Constitución bus terminal, one of the main transport nodes in the Argentine capital.
“Those who have not yet gone out to work should go out, there are means of transportation for those who want to,” Bullrich assured, while the Secretary of Transportation, Franco Mogetta, estimated that the service operated in “a 40%”.
The official stated that during the morning attacks were reported on buses to which “They broke their windows and put nails in them so they could puncture them.”the tires.
Polls place Milei’s positive image among Four. Five% and fifty%, despite the fact that in five months he has inflicted what he defines as “the biggest adjustment in the history of humanity”.
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Source: Gestion
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