MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine unions take to the streets to protest job cuts and inflation
Argentina’s strongest unions brought thousands of people into the streets Friday to protest high inflation and job cuts in the biggest demonstrations against President Mauricio Macri since he took office in December. Demonstrators waving blue and white Argentine flags flooded the main avenues of Buenos Aires, blocking traffic in a protest that brought together rival unions that put aside differences to protest Macri’s policies. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesGnocchi. Fire a half million. See if the rest protest then.
Apr 30th, 2016 - 01:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0All very predictable.
Apr 30th, 2016 - 03:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0When the new gov took power I said it would take 6 months.
tick tocking
You mean ñoquis.
Apr 30th, 2016 - 03:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Looks like the Ñoqui Preservation Law will be passed and veto-proof. And the government isn't even enforcing its own laws and is letting the demonstrators control the streets and keeping others from going to “work.” So Peronismo is still in control of the country. Good luck attracting all that new foreign investment. Nothing has changed.
Who decides what is “justified” firing, The Unions??
Apr 30th, 2016 - 05:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What a culture that has a commonly used word, noquis, for employees that don't work or even show up for work. They should be publicly shamed, as stealing from the Public
No, I mean potato dumplings.
Apr 30th, 2016 - 06:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The State workers excuses are lame....thousands don't turn up for work and still getting paid ? no wonder they're complaining.....bunch of irresponsible twats who couldn't care less about the country.
Apr 30th, 2016 - 07:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Years ago we had the same type of occurrence soon after the recently-elected Mayor for São Paulo, took office. Suspecting, or rather, certain that there were hundreds of 'ghost-employees', all hired in previous administrations, he ordered that all employees show up in their respective departments on given dates - those that didn't would be sacked, outright. When he and his reps went to the various departments on the given dates, they saw saw hundreds of people standing about with nowhere to sit..... those standing, were sacked. End of story.
Gullible commentators above have swallowed Macri's “ñoqui” lies hook, sinker and line.
May 01st, 2016 - 08:01 am - Link - Report abuse 0Come on! Macri's project is a favourite of the neoliberal toolbox that preaches that high unemployment make workers less united, fearful of losing their job, therefore less likely to ask for a raise. The new entrepreneur-president is aiming for an unemployment rate of around 15 per cent.
Before he began his election campaign he freely expressed his doctrine: “we need to lower the costs, and wages are but part of the costs.”
Ñoquis? Too many public departments are getting shut down, workers left with nothing to do, and then let go. For example, health workers working to stop the zika epidemics are being laid off.
In just a few months, Macri administration has succeeded in prompting unity among most unions and organizations, which acted together on May First--Workers' Day demonstrations.
All Macri hopefuls are going to be sorely disappointed in less time than most believe, because the guy is power-drunk and has no measure in his all-out offensive against everything that is not blue chip corporations and bog estancieros. He lacks the tools of previous governments that implemented similar programs by using tanks, green Ford Falcons and patotas as well as clandestine concentration camps. Lacking those persuasive instruments, Macri will go up in flames, sooner than expected--remember my words.
@7 Stupid Person...
May 01st, 2016 - 08:56 am - Link - Report abuse 0'health workers working to stop the zika epidemics are being laid off.'
Introducing 'Zika' is all same Godwin's Law... you lose.. sorry.
@7
May 01st, 2016 - 09:16 am - Link - Report abuse 0As you are sooo clever, what is your considered opinion as to how can Argentina get on its feet?
@7 Enrique
May 01st, 2016 - 10:51 am - Link - Report abuse 0Common sense dictates that you can't spend your way out of debt. Cuts are inevitable.
And trimming the fat is obvious. Especially on bloated local and national government institutions where there are usually lots of people being paid money for old rope. In other words being paid with the honest taxpayers money to do nothing.
The only way to help Argentina recover, and thus create jobs, is to encourage international investment. In other words, Enrique, getting multinational companies to set up shop in Argentina. The real problem is, Enrique, is that your beloved Cristina's 'won' decade drove all international investment away.
So if Macri can tempt some companies back it will create jobs for Argentines, but these Argentines will actually have to work for a living.
But that is good. Because being in work and actually being expected to be productive increases people's self-esteem. With more self-esteem they're more likely to have a positive outlook for the future, and are therefore more likely to invest in their own futures. Perhaps by buying a house (which helps Argentina's economy), and then maintaining that house. So they spend money, which all goes into Argentina's economy. The money the government makes can then be invested back into Argentina's infrastructure, better schools, hospitals, roads, trains, planes etc...
But this can't happen overnight. Your beloved Cristina and spouse, systematically destroyed Argentina over the 'won' decade. Macri can't fix that overnight. Although people like you always want the 'quick' fix which is why your so easily fooled by people like the Kirchners who promise you the moon and actually give you nothing, except lies and fairy tales. But because you are greedy and impatient you want to believe them, you want to believe that somehow this time it will be different. But it never is, and your beloved Cristina laughed all the way to her offshore bank account.
First impressions count, runs the old saying in western countries.
May 01st, 2016 - 11:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0Macri placated the unions at the first meeting and I stated at the time this error would come back and bite him and so it has.
He now has a real problem in managing a bunch of dead heads but who possess fox like cunning and the abject loyalty of their members.
The last time I had this sort of nonsense to deal with we closed the factory having sacked everybody in it (including the management) and paid them all the statutory entitlements they were due, waited six months and started up again with new contracts and interviews for everybody so we could sort out the union troublemakers and pick the most promising applicants to join the new start.
That was how you had to do it at the time in England and Wales.
CFK controlled the unemployment rate by hiring every unemployed person into the Gov't ranks. I think at one point Argentina had more people employed in their Fed gov't than the USA!
May 01st, 2016 - 12:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Clean house and let the chips fall where they may.
The Unions will never be happy or even satisfied so let them strike. Fire them all for abandoning their jobs and start over.
The Lefty losers had a decade, all over the world, running many countries into the ground. They failed. Miserably. It's now time for reasonable people to take the reigns and try to right all the wrongs they implemented.
The left won't go quietly. They don't like Democracy. They don't respect the law. They will need to be put down like a rabid dog.
The people will want order over chaos.
Bring it on.
The credibility and the confidence of investors (productive) are directly linked to state policies and not temporary government policies.
May 01st, 2016 - 12:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Neoliberal policies should always be aimed at the common good and not the enrichment of a few at the expense of the exploitation of millions of people.
Another thing, in neo liberalism the foreign capital should always be an adjunct never the main form of investment or capitalization at risk of loss of sovereignty and weakening the nation's strategic interests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4qbmYWCbo8&list=FLmXPTu1f8AdGlizWNiASx2A&index=6
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeekie!
May 01st, 2016 - 01:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0lol.
“remember my words”
lol.
All rgs lie.
Are you not an rg?
I am Brazilian.
May 01st, 2016 - 01:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvxkULQhMPE&list=FLmXPTu1f8AdGlizWNiASx2A&index=46
Brasileiro, have you lost what's left of your feeble mind?
May 01st, 2016 - 01:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have not lost anything. I'm the same guy with the same ideologies.
May 01st, 2016 - 01:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm18W6wEwk8&index=37&list=FLmXPTu1f8AdGlizWNiASx2A
17. It must be sad to see your ideologies put in use and then collapse every country and Society that implements them.
May 01st, 2016 - 02:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0One would think you'd see you've been misled and make a change.
@7 Enrique
May 01st, 2016 - 02:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“Macri's project is a favourite of the neoliberal toolbox that preaches that high unemployment make workers less united, fearful of losing their job, therefore less likely to ask for a raise. The new entrepreneur-president is aiming for an unemployment rate of around 15 per cent. ”
Macri wants an unemployment rate of 15% ??
He wants to keep people fearful ?
Enrique, you are so indoctrinated. It was CFK's policies that scared off investors, and drove the economy into the ground. Argentina had 35% inflation, a peso devalued by half on the black market, 30% of Argentines living in poverty, and increasing unemployment. She was shovelling out public money to prop up the Peso and pay the noquis to do nothing.
Macri is trying to replace the noquis who are a direct drain on the economy, and replace their nonproductive 'jobs' with real jobs created by foreign and local investment in a stable economy.
The verdict is in on communism - it produces only failure, privation and suffering.
May 01st, 2016 - 02:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Those still supporting it are the twenty first century flat earthers - arguing on vainly in the face of facts to the contrary.
Kleptocracy however is working pretty well for those doing the stealing.
If Cretina and crew have any kind of criminal ability there will be less than a 10% recovery of stolen asset.
The verdict's out on brasill.
The thefts are an order of magnitude larger scale but the expertise of the launderers is largely undemonstrated.
The say the Ks used to weigh the money because counting the massive amounts stolen was a waste of time.
May 01st, 2016 - 02:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Just like the drug dealers
They'll find enough of it to lock her up.
I bet her children go missing or have an accident
Its not like the mafia doesn't know where they live
How's the name of the 1st Minister of England? I heard he also washes money in tax havens. Who incidentally was created by you English bankers.
May 01st, 2016 - 02:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And now you want to give lessons of kleptocracy and plutocracy for us! Make me laugh!
North American is the other name given decay. And yet those idiots criticize us.
This website is turned upside down!
What I do admire about the brazzileans is the industry and efficiency that are demonstrating in looting their government.
May 01st, 2016 - 03:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@13
May 01st, 2016 - 03:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Brasso is quite lucid in his post but Brasso in@ 22 back to being incomprehensible, what do you fellows think, same person?
@22. Here you go. “Brazil and Brasileiro”. Two jokes for the price of one. Both are worth the laugh you want.
May 01st, 2016 - 03:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I'm glad you're back, Conqueror. I always laugh with his jokes about the much-vaunted British military force.
May 01st, 2016 - 03:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0See....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4qbmYWCbo8&list=FLmXPTu1f8AdGlizWNiASx2A&index=6
Does this ship was part of the Royal Navy?
hahaha
@24 Golfcronie
May 01st, 2016 - 04:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I think the Brassiere persona has demonstrated time and again, that he is run by multiple operators.
There is a Brasso that harasses us and spouts glib clichés in crude English, and another Brasso that puts out carefully crafted propaganda and disinformation at selected timely moments.
26. Brazil hasn't ever fought in modern combat. Having equipment and men is a very small part of winning a war.
May 01st, 2016 - 04:41 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You'd lose if you fought the UK.
Badly.
@28 Brazil is BRICS the powerful.
May 01st, 2016 - 06:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@7 Reekie, the sound-bite in today's news here is probably one of the better characterisations of the situation:
May 01st, 2016 - 11:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Macri: “El Gobierno anterior ocultó la desocupación y el estancamiento creando trabajo inútil” (the previous government concealed unemployment and stagnation by creating worthless jobs)
Yes, the economy and the present government will fail, but it will be largely from the unwillingness of the peronista masses to participate in meaningful, productive, competitive work, and their insistence on weekly riots as a means for keeping the sort of subsidies and benefits that would make a Greek Communist blush. And it will fail because Argentina will remain one of the worst places in the world for foreign investors to open and operate a new business.
29 Brazil in collapse
May 02nd, 2016 - 10:54 am - Link - Report abuse 0Russia in collapse
China in collapse
They're all just waiting for the last piece of straw.
@29 Brasshole, or whichever asshole posted at 29...
May 02nd, 2016 - 02:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The BRICS is DEAD......so is your leftist dream.
What Macri ought to do is invite all the unions to participate in real talks and ask them how THEY would fix the economy, but let the man on the street listen to the unions speak. Unfortuneatly the unions would have no idea how to fix the economy. But Macri would be able to say, we asked the unions but they would not attend and speak.
May 02nd, 2016 - 03:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0''ARGENTINA, THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES''.
May 02nd, 2016 - 04:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0''Argentina is a country with an unemployment rate of 6%, and a low foreign debt, beside, it has the lowest social unequality of Latin America, and the highest human development of the whole region.
On the other hand, i has had a great techonological progress, and it made very big inverstments in public works, to improve the infrustucture of the country''
Perhaps, you all think that it must have been said by C. F. K. or by some kirchnerist activists, however, let me tell you that if you think it, you are absolutly wrong, it is actualy a report that the government presents to important businesssmen in the U. S A., with the purpose of convencing them of inversting in our country.
As you can see, it contradicts so much the soposed ''pesada herencia'' (heavy inherance), that he often says he received from C. F. K's administration.
It's well known that in politic anybody can be anything, but not ingenous, unfortunately, many people still don't take enough concience in relation to the social interests that conservatives represent, that's why, beyond the warnings that we did during the campaign, a majority decided to believe Macri's lie, respecting what his acolytes called, ''a fear campaign'', when what we actualy did, was to warn about the reactionary measures that he would take, in case of winning the election.
This government is so useless that it's members can't even create a coherent relate, that helps them to justify the regressive policies that they have implemented, in fact, they often lie saying that Argentina neather grows, nor creates jobs since 4 years ago, however, most of the measures they took, just provoked more inflation, a ressessive scenario, and a deterioration of people's buying power.
Unfortunately, we weren't wrong, because he's actualy implementing the hard cuts that we warned during the campaign, but now, it's already too late.
@ 33 golfcronie
May 02nd, 2016 - 05:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0On the face of it a good idea but one I would never use for the simple reason the unions would reply “so you want US to fix the problems you have caused?”
You have to consider that as far as these numbnut cretins are concerned they are always in the right, even when they are in the wrong.
Only legislation banning certain activities will work AND that, as they say, will NEVER happen in the Dark Country until Macri has a resounding majority in both houses.
If he gets a second term he may be in a better position to do all sorts of things that need to be done for the good of all.
axel, we know what a pile of bosta this is, and the sort of rubbish that the US produces as it attempts to meet political goals.
May 02nd, 2016 - 06:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0''Argentina is a country with an unemployment rate of 6%,...“
-- Evidently you don't understand that Argentina has a long history of lying about its stats, and particularly about employment, while creating meaningless and worthless government ”jobs“ which produce no valuable goods or services.
”. the lowest social unequality of Latin America...“
-- This must mean that exceeding 30 percent poverty is the gold standard for redistributionism.
”, and the highest human development of the whole region.“
-- Where more than half of the young people fail to complete secondary school.
” i has had a great techonological progress“
--- Except in English. See note above on failure of the education system.
” , and it made very big inverstments in public works,“
-- You must understand that an ”inverstment“ in Argentina means paying someone like Lazaro Báez enormous amounts of money for public works, only to have much of that money not spent on public works at all, but turned into US$100 bills, counted in front of the cameras at the Rosadito, and swept into the pockets of political figures.
” to improve the infrustucture of the country''
-- The “infrustucture” here is crumbling beneath our feet.
Axel needs to go to a reeducation camp.
May 02nd, 2016 - 08:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#34 is a perfect example of complete Argentine leftist stupidity and ignorance.
May 02nd, 2016 - 09:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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