Labor "Reform" and the Betrayal of the Unions

Human history, as Marx and Engels discovered, is a history of class struggle. Today in Argentina, this is manifesting itself in its cruelest and most cynical form. The government of Javier Milei, acting as a proxy for business leaders and multinationals, consolidated its victory on February 27th passing by the "Labor Modernization Law".

This reform, approved by 42 votes to 28 thanks to the complicity of sectors of the UCR and provincial governors, is nothing more than a social engineering mechanism to intensify the extraction of surplus value. Capital has a "vital instinct" to suck every drop of surplus labor, and this law increases its legal tools to do so.

Free Exploitation

The reform eliminated legal limits on wage reductions and payments in kind. Under the euphemism of "hour bank", workdays of up to 12 hours are legalized. Increased overtime pay (50% or 100%) ised. If there is a high level of production in a week, you work 60 hours; the extra 20 hours are simply made up the following week.

With the new law, the Minimum, Living, and Mobile Wage (SMVM) become the maximum, although it remains below the poverty line. However, a "dynamic wage" is introduced, making it dependent on individual productivity or merit, as by the company. The capitalist does not pay for time, but for exhausting work, so that the worker can supplement his meager salary with bonuses and "incentives". Payment in kind, in food, or in any foreign currency, is also allowed, authorized capital to take advantage of inflationary conditions.

Bonuses, premiums, and travel allowances are excluded from the calculation of pensions, thirteenth-month payments, and allowances.

The new law eliminates the automatic renewal of collective bargaining agreements. This allows companies to stall while the previous conditions are eliminated. The reform establishes that the company-level agreement takes precedence over the national sector-level agreement, even if it is more advantageous to the worker. This further divides the labor movement in its struggle for labor rights, pushing it isolation towards the company level, a practice followed by opportunists in the union leadership.

The law makes dismissals cheaper by making it for employers to blackmail and turnover staff. It also limits leave paid and time off. Maternity leave: women can work up to 10 days before giving birth. Sickness and injury: for injuries resulting from "voluntary" activities, caused outside of work, can reduce pay to 75%. Holidays: can be split into 7-day periods if production requires it.

Argentine law requires strikes to guarantee “essential services” with 75% attendance.

The False Strike

On Thursday, February 19, the Argentine working class experienced a day that exposed the failure of the pro-employer, treacherous union leadership, which for decades has served capital, its despite claims to the contrary. Although workers worked turned out massively—demonstrating their profound discontent and will to fight—the leadership of the CGT and other unions focused on curbing the mobilization and the extension of the strike.

It was a false strike: a celebrary, media-driven, theatrical and walkout. The CGT prevented workers from marching to Congress, attaining the police to surround Parliament while the "people's representatives" reasserted their privileges. The opportunism of the "dialogue" parties only serves to lend a veneer of legality to the theft of historic demands.

This behavior by Argentine trade unions is not new and has been a constant alless Milei's government. The national general strikes called by the CGT not only failed to fail includes worker mobilization, but were harmless to capital because they respected basic services and did not last beyond a few hours. In the meantime, the CGT ensured that the struggles taken places separately, not into a single proletarian movement. It also did not plan simultaneous actions and ensured that the movement did not gather in assemblies, which would have allowed workers to participate from the rank and file in directing the actions.

So February 19th was no different: another false strike, harmless to capital. Only a few workers' groups attempted to give it a more combative tone with pickets and roadblocks. While the "people's representatives" debated in Parliament, the Ministry of Security implemented the "Anti-Picket Protocol": spray, water cannons, and rubber bullets against combative sectors. In fact, the other side of the reform was a general plan of direct repression. Dozens of arrests were made, including union delegates and left-wing activists. The government established "work zones" for journalists, warning that anyone would be they who would be them face police.

The Way Forward

The approval of this anti-worker law necessitates a profound reorganization from below of the workers' movement in Argentina.

1. Class-based program of demands: workers must unite around demands that reject all nationalism, defense of the homeland, the national economy, electoralism, and parliamentarism.

2. Convergence in a Class-Based United Union Front: overcome the division imposed by the treacherous leadership of the unions, integrating workers of union affiliation. Employed, unemployed, precariously employed, and retired workers must join forces. Instead of limiting organization to the confines of the factories, promote local organization that integrates the class of workers. The Class-Based United Union Front also must be a space for fighting the opportunism and betrayal present in the labor movement and in the leadership of the current unions.

3. An indefinite general strike extending to all sectors of the economy. The only language capital understands is a total production shutdown. Argentine mandates "essential services", which requires a minimum 75% shift.

4. Abandon the Parliament the illusion: Both Parliament and the presidency are bourgeois institutions that defend capital.

Workers' emancipation must be the work of the workers!