Milei attacks the working class and its unions

Daniela of Socialismo o Barbarie talked to Solidarity about Milei and Argentina

Javier Milei's first phase as the far-right president of Argentina (since December 2023) was social cuts, with the promise this would reduce inflation. Now he has moved on to the next phase, which is directly attacking the position of the unions.

The one that's getting the most of the attacks is the far-left union organising tire workers (SUTNA)

There are three main enterprises, one has been shut down, and the government let the enterprise close with hundreds of employees on the streets, no jobs, since February.

The factory just didn't open up again after works holidays, the summer holidays. In Argentinian law, since 2001, if the capitalist abandons an enterprise, the workers can take control and run it as a cooperative. We are demanding that the state buy the company and put it back to work, but Milei is not going to do that. There will be no nationalisation of this company,

The workers are still in the factory, but they can't produce anything because they don't have supplies.

One of our members who is a worker there said in April that they want to put the factory back in motion by themselves. He's been working there for 32 years, and he was the vice-presidential candidate for our party in 2015. They have general assemblies of a hundred workers or more in the factory.

In Argentinian law, when you do massive layoffs in companies, you need to justify it with the labour ministry, and Milei's letting all the job cuts go ahead. He hasn't changed the law.

He has, in March, reduced, redundancy pay. You used to get one month's salary for each year that you had of work in the enterprise.

He is also making budget cuts for health and universities. Universities in Argentina are mostly public, funded by the state. There are private universities, but they're not as prestigious as the public ones.

There have been really big protests. The salaries of many university staff are under the poverty line, and some researchers are working as Uber drivers on the side.

Other researchers may have other means of funding their lives. For instance, university law teachers have private law firms, and some of them are judges. Philosophy teachers do secondary school courses to be able to still keep working. Scientists in hard sciences migrate to labs that could pay them in the private or to Europe.

In health, Milei started by defunding programmes of assistance for disabled people. In Argentina, retired people used to get five medications for free, and he has withdrawn that.

Hospitals are free in Argentina. But when you go to the pharmacy, you usally have to pay for your medicine. If you have insurance, you will get discounts. Health coverage of health is either public, private, or social. Social health insurance is administered by unions.

Inflation is not as high as it was, but it's still there, and there is no indexation of salaries whatsoever, so workers are still losing against inflation., even if it's not as big as inflation as

Unions are not talking about general strikes any more, because they say that we need to preserve jobs. if workers ask too much, they're going to be laid off.

Unemployment is about 7.5%, but still many people have two jobs or three jobs and still are under the poverty line. There’s massive informal employment with no legal conditions and this is the kind of workers who do not get union coverage.

Right now, people are not asking for the unions to do more. People are calling for Milei to quit, more radicalised people are asking for the Peronists to do something, but the Peronists are not doing anything.

Milei does not have demonstrations of people in the streets chanting his name or anything like this. He has young right-wing people who support him and are anti-LGBT rights and anti-feminist movement.

He is getting a lot of bad press now because his government has many corruption scandals.

Argentina used to be the country in the world with the best trans rights in law, and the law is still there, but things have got a little more violent against LGBT people. Milei has dismantled the office where you would go to say you have been discriminated against

But is still possible and legal get to be recognised in your gender identity, and you can change identity just by going to a public office and asking.

There was also a law for 1% of public jobs to go to the trans people. That is no longer being implemented. The law still exists, but Milei doesn't apply it.

Milei is not anti-migrant like Kast in Chile. He's "anti-corruption" or "anti-state", and he is kind of racist against Argentinians of indigenous background who are browner.

Also, religion is not a fundamental part of his programme. In Argentina, we don't have as much progress by the evangelicals as in Brazil. Catholicism is still very strong, since we had an Argentinian Pope, and many people also like the new Pope, because he is opposing Trump.

We have some Venezuelan immigration, and Russian immigration. And we have local immigration, from Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay. Some of the Venezuelans migrants vote for him because they hate "communism", and Milei hates "communists" too.

Moods of resignation are really strong. Discussions are beginning for the presidential election next year. There are no clear alternatives to Milei.

Milei is expecting to get investments of capital, foreign capital, for developing lithium. Soybeans to China are still a big export. Argentina has exported lithium to China, Japan, South Korea, and United States.

Argentina reckons it is going to be the world's second largest producer of lithium by 2030, more than Chile and China. Milei is passing laws to ensure that this exploitation assures extractivist forms of profit for foreign capitals.