MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina comes to a halt as transport unions shut-down buses, trains, subways, air traffic
A strike by Argentine transport workers caused chaos for Buenos Aires commuters and forced airlines to cancel flights on Tuesday as the government accused unions of playing pre-election politics. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesThese are not union leaders looking for the interests of the workers. They are sold-outs who have aligned with the opposition to support a conservative government in the October presidential election.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 05:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0Hugo Moyano, leader of the CGT, is of the ilk of former union bureaucrats Rogelio Coria, Jose Ignacio Rucci and Saul Ubaldini.
No public transport - paradise.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 06:00 am - Link - Report abuse 0@1 Enrique
Jun 10th, 2015 - 06:38 am - Link - Report abuse 0No the people are fed up of rampant inflation, rampant corruption, and the FACT that children are starving to DEATH in YOUR beloved Cristina's PARADISE.
The people are fed up with not being able to afford staples, such as bread. They are fed up that they can't get medicines or treatment because of Cristina's INSANE economic policies that mean the cost of any item imported has to have Argentine produce of the EXACT same amount exported.
I mean what hospital could afford, not only to buy for example, US$32,000 worth of drugs, but then also have to buy US$32,000 worth of soy, and then somehow find someone abroad who wants to buy that soy!
It's complete and utter MADNESS.
But it doesn't affect you, does it Enrique? Your nice and safe in a country where there aren't shortages, where there is a sensible economic policy, which is, compared to Argentina, ACTUALLY paradise.
Why don't you be a man and return to the paradise of Argentina that you love so much? Why don't you go there and support your beloved President and her policies? Why don't you go and see the invisible poor who are starving slowly to death, but the government denies even exist?
Why don't you go and try and live on less than $6 a day, which according to your beloved Cristina is ALL anyone needs to live?
Go on put your money where your mouth is and go and live in Cristina's paradise, which is everyone else's hell.
3
Jun 10th, 2015 - 08:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0Well said !!
@1 You won't know this but Hugo Moyano used to get on famously with Nestor Kirchner.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 09:03 am - Link - Report abuse 0So, you think anyone not agreeing with your glorious leader, CFK, has 'sold out'? Surely in a civilised and democratic country is is perfectly reasonable to have an opposition and to voice criticism of the incumbent president. But, following your line of thinking, an awful lot of people 'sold out' and do not support CFK. She should be worried.
Enrique doesn't have put up with the strike.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 10:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0He doesn't have to put up with 30-40% inflation.
He doesn't have to put with shortages.
He doesn't have to put with rampant crime.
He doesn't have to put up with corrupt officials.
He doesn't have to put up with no growth and growing poverty.
It is unsurprising that he always misses the point.
31 your words might actually mean something if you spoke from experience rather that 6000 miles away in Toronto. Like Skip posted.....you do not have to live with anything reality you ignore and/or are ignorant of by NOT living, visiting Argentina. Like we all tell Toby.....you can't google the world and call yourself a world traveler. It misses most all of the reality. You remind me of guys who watch war movies and feel they know what combat is.......eh?
Jun 10th, 2015 - 10:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0I was on the telephone several hours with one of my very dear friends in San Juan yesterday because his daughter was returning from Europe via LAN to SCL and was stuck in Santiago as her connecting flight to Mendoza had been cancelled.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 11:19 am - Link - Report abuse 0She's currently this morning in our kitchen wearing a borrowed bathrobe from my wife explaining why she would like to emigrate. My daughter has volunteered to help her stay.
@1. Reekie. Effects of the strike;
Jun 10th, 2015 - 11:38 am - Link - Report abuse 0Buses: There will be no short, medium and long-distance bus or coach services anywhere in the country.
- Trains: The railway system will also be inactive due to the drivers' strike.
- Subways: The B and D lines will close while the rest of the system will function, although journeys may be affected by the UTA stoppage. That union has pledged that tomorrow “there will be no subways”.
- Fuel: There will be no transport of petroleum products, which could cause shortages at service stations.
Supermarkets will not receive stocks.
- ATMs: While bank workers will not strike, the transport stoppage could affect cash availability in ATMs over the day.
- Refuse: In the City and Greater Buenos Aires there will be no refuse collection, although some district will use contingency plans to ensure a minimum service.
- Public administration: Severely limited services.
- Public hospitals: Emergency cases only.
- Courts: No activity.
- Ports: Closed due to the strike.
- Countryside: Rural workers to observe strike measures.
- Tolls: Workers at toll booths join the strike nationwide.
- Universities: Classes cancelled in some institutions due to a 48-hour strike carried out by the Conadu union.
- Schools: Certain unions will join strike, but all school will open for classes.
You can't get that many people to go on strike just because a union leader says so. It happens when the people aren't happy. Quite a range of people there!
Incidentally, Tomada is pedalling frantically and getting nowhere. It's all a plot! Course it is.
At last!
Jun 10th, 2015 - 12:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The people of TDC are showing unity AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT!
Now if only they would VOTE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT they might just get somewhere.
NO chance of that though. :o(
Austral Elvis was mad a US rep said that the FX market was to blame for no FDI entering Argentina.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 12:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0His reply was the bad economy was due to the USA blocking Arg meat and lemons.
Bahahahahahhaa
Do Rgs pick their leaders from insane asylums?
Its a serious question.
I don't see how they can get these delusional idiots all in one place and with the power to ruin lives.
These Kidiots aren't qualified to work in McDonalds much less a high gov't position.
Conquerer,
Jun 10th, 2015 - 12:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Not all these people were aligned with the strike, but all were affected by it (me included).
It is all these scumbag unions know is to strike, but they are as much to blame as the government.
No one wants to hire workers due to unions and employment policies created by them.
They can go on strike, but don't block the roads for others.
If they don't like their pay, then good go find another job.
12. The Argentine people have ceded power to the Unions. Don't blame the unions for the mess the country is in because its the apathy and stupidity of the citizenry that has caused it.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 01:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0That's how I know the path of devolution is assured.
You'll be worse off next year than this year and so on and so on.
The union of which Moyano was boss had been stripped out of legal status by the military in the 1970s. Nestor Kirchner re-established it.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 01:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Blue and White union leader Luis Barrionuevo received significant backlash for declaring that in the time of the dictatorship dialogue and negotiations were possible “unlike with this government.”
Cosas veredes, Sancho.
There will be more general strikes until the K's give them a huge wage increase and the $28B they've stolen from the Unions healthcare accounts.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 01:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Its all about the $
Eventually the Ks will give in
They have no choice and they don't care what happens after Dec.
hyperinflation is on the way and
I can't wait.
:)
It's a good thing I left before all the strikes commenced. Many of my friends understood why I chose to leave. The apathy that you describe YB comes from the idea that “nothing will change”.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 02:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's a very sad state of affairs. Some individuals would rather just give up and take a beating than push back to create a possibility for change. That is why the K's get away with so much. However, it is good that there are some that care enough to assert themselves and show that they won't tolerate anymore corruption.
EM
Jun 10th, 2015 - 02:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0How dare the unions 'betray' the Kircheners, just because there is corruption, gross economic incompetence, deteriorating social benefits, and raging inflation that leaves the workers falling further and further behind...
Sounds more like the K's have betrayed the workers, and the people of Argentina...
Optimus, Statism works well when small liberties are taken away daily. A little here a little there and before you know it you are living in a h*ll.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 02:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0That's what has happened in Argentina.
The citizenry's silence was bought and paid for with subsidies and free money.
Now its too late
It will only get worse.
Works unite! 45% or no commerce!
Jun 10th, 2015 - 03:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Moan moan moan,
Jun 10th, 2015 - 07:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What's wrong with walking ..
makes you fitter lol
I am sure most posters here have to pinch themselves to believe they are supporting a strike, even a revolution.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 07:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0My gosh! Not bad for a pretty conservative (don't wanna say reactionary) bunch!
Anyway. I have seen those strikes before. They are decreed by the union leaders--members do not have a say on it--and must be complied or workers are in for serious trouble.
So they are not a symptom of anything at the membership level. This lineage of union leaders are a sad inheritance of the model Juan Peron put in place. Their ways are fascist in nature.
They launch strikes every time they want to negotiate something with either the government or the opposition. Union membership is automatic and not elective.
But don't expect much of them. These leaders are the total opposite of anything revolutionary. Large and combative mobilizations such as the Cordobazo in 1969 were not done at all by these sort of leaders but by “classist” unions that fought against the--previous--military dictatorship in defiance and in spite of the peronist, opportunistic traditional unions.
Wait for it. Here it is:
Jun 10th, 2015 - 07:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Reeeekie writes: “Here It is, all the issues of a nation of forty-some million people explained in just seven words. We are all liars.”
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
@12. You seem to be labouring under some sort of illusion. Having exhausted other means, the purpose of a strike is to cause as much disruption as possible. People can't get to work? That's fine. Shows how important transport workers are. No fuel for vehicles? Ditto. And how is it different to what the 'government' does? Call it the voice of the people.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 08:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@21. Really? Have you tried taking a poll or asking for the opinions of the transport workers on strike? You're so funny, Reekie. Tell us how the people object to the way they are treated in your peronist 'paradise'. Do they go along to 'negotiations' to hear the government/employer say 'No'. So they trot out and tell the people they represent 'Not this year'. Maybe next year. Make do on a slice of bread and half a potato per day'. And what was included in the background? Kisses-his-ass-off dictating maximum pay increases. Any pay increase should pay attention not only to the past, but to the likely future. Argieland can confidently expect 40% inflation. That's 40% price rises. Wasn't the Kick-off suggesting 27%? So they finish up 13% more behind than they were before. What happens when they can't afford the mortgage, the fuel bills, food. Do they just move to the Villas and curse not having decided to become a political criminal?
21. Reekie, That's the exact decription of the Piqueteros that Nestor used as mobs as needed to get his way.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 08:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Choripan and a Coke was their payment
I saw them a lot when I lived there.
Fair game in Argentina use to the slum dwellers to incite violence.
Filthy propagandist.
@21 I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 09:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have recounted stories of people I know who are compelled to attend protests on behalf of the government or lose their jobs. La Campora uses the same methods. The unions do the same and CFK has said many times that strikes have to be allowed to go ahead - until they don't suit her.
When I lived in Buenos Aires - something you have never done - there were on average 300 protest per month.
25. When I lived there Nestor and his band of delinquent slum dwellers would take over streets, tearing up everything with their faces covered and with these big bats (sticks) they'd use to hit people and smash stuff.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 09:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The Ks are nothing more than fascists.
The Rgs deserve exactly what's coming for them
and
that's Caracas.
@26 Don't forget the matching tea-towels wrapped around their faces.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 09:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yeah kinda hard to say its a spontaneous riot when they all have matching towels covering their faces.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 10:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0and the same sticks
:)
So Austral Elvis is hoping (wishing dreaming) to pay 30%+ on their next bonds.
Obviously all is going well ...
I passed by some of those negro s today in Monseratt when I drove through.
Jun 10th, 2015 - 10:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Traffic was chaos in centro.
۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑۶↑??????????????????
Jun 10th, 2015 - 11:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Chronic your such a super douche!
Jun 10th, 2015 - 11:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Say something new or take a hike
25 ElaineB
Jun 11th, 2015 - 04:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0“@21 I am not sure what point you are trying to make.”
The point I am trying to make it's this: Union leaders who launched the last strike do not represent the workers but themselves. That is their main weakness. They have intimidating patotas to force the strike on those who disagree, and paralyzing public transportation and blockades of accesses guarantees some success of their strike. However, they can only go so far forcing a political action as the last one. They may even generate a backlash, as happened with Menemista CGT Azul y Blanca leader Luis Barrionuevo, who said things were better under the military.
@32 And my point is that La Campora - Fat Max's army - behave in exactly the same way. He uses them, as does CFK. It is not individual will but a mob ordered about to suit the Kirchners. I know some of the people used by the government in this way. They are sent to stand outside place and protest, or to smash and grab some foreign-owned business, or a business owned by someone daring to criticise the government. They are ORDERED to do it. If they refuse they are in personal danger.
Jun 11th, 2015 - 07:48 am - Link - Report abuse 0Lest the rotting roadkillians forget -
Jun 11th, 2015 - 12:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Reeeekie writes: “Here It is, all the issues of a nation of forty-some million people explained in just seven words. We are all liars.”
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
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http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/15/cristina-fernandez-comes-out-strongly-in-defense-of-minister-kicillof
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