MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine government and Moyano try to set ground rules for future relationship

The powerful union leader has been on the defensive for months

In another round of the ongoing battle between the Argentina government and the leader of organized labour Hugo Moyano, Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo stated that “if the union leaders are really representatives of the working class, there is no possibility of a divorce between the CGT Labour Confederation and the national government”.

The minister explained in an interview with the government financed newspaper ‘Tiempo Argentino’ that “this government took the worker as central to its policies” and he added “if they do their work [unions], there should be no problem because President Cristina Fernández is not someone impartial as she always is with the less fortunate, the weaker side”.

Asked about how will the relationships between CGT boss Hugo Moyano, and the President roll off for the next four years, Randazzo assured: “I am confident that there will be no difficulties if the representatives of the workers play their role”.

Randazzo’s statement was an elliptic reply to the powerful leader of the CGT Moyano who said that dialogue with President Cristina Fernandez “is suspended”.

In the final days of last year Moyano who has been a crucial ally of the two Kirchner administrations (Nestor K, 2003/2007 and CFK, 2007/2011) pointed out that “contacts with the president are not broken, but rather suspended from her side”.

The big distance between the workers’ union movement and the government “is the policies they implement”, said Moyano who did not discard the possibility of organizing a general strike “if conditions worsen”.

Moyano stepped down in mid December from the ruing Partido Justicialista board from the province of Buenos Aires (the main voting district) in mid December on the same day that in a huge political really in the City of Buenos Aires he accused the Executive of applying measures contrary to the workers’ interests.

Relations between Cristina Fernandez and Moyano deteriorated following her landslide victory and re-election with a record 54.1% of the vote and her decision not to privilege organized labour representatives as lawmaker candidates and on the contrary include names of other political organizations totally loyal to the re-elected president.

However there are recurrent attempts to build bridges the latest of which from lawmaker and head of the newspaper salesmen union Omar Plaini who assured that the collective bargaining talks between the Government and the CGT Labour Confederation “shouldn’t be a concern” since both sides “always end up coming to an agreement” on salaries.

As the time for collective bargaining talks approaches and tension between the CGT and the Government remains, Plaini, a unionist close to the organization’s boss Moyano, said that “there’s no reason to be worried about.”

“This is already part of our folklore every start of the year. We’ve always come to a solution in these last eight years, so there’s nothing to worry about. The Labour Minister himself Carlos Tomada said there are neither salary floors nor ceilings in our discussions,” he explained.

But skirmishes continue and Buenos Aires province Deputy Governor Gabriel Mariotto admitted that Moyano’s relations with the government are not the ideal and warned about the current Argentine economic development inclusive model.

“No one’s ego is going to stop the Government’s model,” he warned. “No one should feel irreplaceable,” he added.