MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine state workers announce 36-hour strike

Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger's wickedness has no limits, ATE's Aguiar insisted

As the economic policies of Argentine President Javier Milei keep taking their toll on ordinary citizens, state workers represented by the ATE (Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado) labor union will stage a 36-hour stoppage on Oct. 29 and 30 to seek a course change. “We can't stand this government any longer,” ATE Secretary-General Rodolfo Aguiar said Tuesday. “We have to deepen the plan of struggle,” he added after a federal plenary with delegates from all over the country.

The measure to start at noon on Oct. 29 will seek to “demand from the Government the immediate reopening of the bargaining negotiations and a raise that will allow for the recovery of the purchasing power lost” since December last year. ATE workers also plan to march past the Deregulation and Transformation Ministry in Buenos Aires.

“The salaries of the state employees are no longer enough to guarantee a dignified life. We have to stop Milei before he finishes annihilating the constitutional right to a fair salary,” Aguiar insisted.

”The Government lies, embraces the caste, and loses popular support. We have to continue in the streets and we must expose [Deregulation Minister Federico] Sturzenegger (...), an official who has for months acted in the shadows, and whose wickedness has no limits,“ Aguiar also explained. ”So far he has gotten off quite cheaply!“

According to ATE, state workers' salaries lost 34% of their purchasing power to inflation. ”We are going to mobilize to the Ministry of Deregulation and Transformation of the State to reject the closing of agencies and the irregularities and excesses in the regulation of the Bases Law,“ a workhorse of the Libertarian administration to reduce state expenditures.

”The Government intends to use the bargaining agreements of the Public Administration to discipline the rest of the sectors. The last increase granted is miserable. These days, state employees are just surviving. The number of public employees below the poverty line is the highest in the last decades. Salary negotiations must be reopened immediately,” Aguiar underlined.

ATE will also demand that layoffs in the public sector be stopped. To this end, protests on roads in different parts of the country are not ruled out. Over 75% of state workers earn below the poverty line per the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) parameters.

ATE workers include those at public universities already going through student takeovers nationwide to protest against budget cuts and the presidential veto of a bill providing for further funding.