With the pretentious name of “law of social solidarity and economic
recovery”, the government of Alberto Fernández and the Frente de Todos has sent
a true austerity plan to Congress for express treatment. In addition to
delegating super powers to the President, the heart of the measures represents
the robbery of retirees´ mobility. The main objective of all the measures this
law and several decrees of necessity and urgency apply is to guarantee the
payment of the external debt in the future, sending Argentina on a path of
austerity against workers and the people. To the point that the first article
authorizes the renegotiation of the debt, that is, recognizing the agreement
with the IMF and paying a usurious, illegitimate and fraudulent debt.
The Fernández-Fernández government erases, with
the stroke of a pen, the equation that automatically updates all pensions,
taking inflation into account, while nullifying the retirement mobility of
special regimes, affecting more than 250 thousand retirees, among whom are national
and university teachers, and scientists and researchers. All in exchange for a
single payment of ten thousand pesos for those with the minimum pension. This
happens at the same time that the financial income tax is removed, favoring the
business of the speculative funds, and 4% of the retentions to the oil
companies that plunder natural resources are reduced. The modest increase in withholdings
to agricultural capital, updating the measure that Macri had taken, is also destined
to pay the debt. This is what the new government calls “reviving the economy.”
The “freezing” of utilities rates is another
maneuver. In the first place, it ratifies and avoids ending the privatized
public services regime inherited from Menem. At the same time, it consolidates
the brutal hikes implemented in the last years. Just last year, the rates of
basic services increased more than 85% despite the multimillion-peso subsidies
granted by the state itself. A far cry from the project of rolling back the rates
to November 2017 that the PJ-Kirchnerism had advocated. Once in power, they
govern for the capitalists who benefit from the plundering of public services.
The presidential decree that imposes double
compensation on new layoffs comes after the bosses have dismissed massively and
closed factories. In the last year alone, official figures show that 135
thousand industrial jobs were lost. This measure is also cosmetic, not only
does it not prohibit dismissals and suspensions, but it also allows employers
to request a “crisis prevention resource” that, in collusion with the union bureaucracy,
allows them to dismiss, even for less than one simple compensation. The “double
compensation” decree contrasts with the “prohibition of dismissals” law that the
PJ-Kirchnerism itself had voted and was vetoed by Macri. The demagogy of their
times in the “opposition” is long gone.
Now that he is in government, Alberto Fernández –
in conjunction with the SMATA (auto workers´ union) bureaucracy – has launched
a “social contract” that combines all kinds of tax concessions to employers,
along with a new labor regime of super exploitation. This is what has already
been implemented in the Vaca Muerta oil agreement, with fatal consequences for
workers. The plan of suspending all the collective bargaining “for six months” that
is being planned with the union federations completes the circle of a labor
reform “agreement by agreement” and an unprecedented wage reduction for all
workers in Argentina. The new bill grants the Executive the power to give
increases according to its own criteria. This measure is intended to take away
from workers and their organizations the right to demand and fight for a salary
that meets the needs of each worker and their families and their working
conditions.
This law is part of a more global government plan,
which is to promote a “social pact” with the UIA (Industrial Union of
Argentina), the big employers, the union bureaucracy and the Church, to call on
workers to wait, in defense of capitalist profit
The Left and Workers´ Front – Unity denounces this
new attack on retirees and workers at the hands of a law to please the IMF and
the usurers of the debt. We call on all workers to promote assemblies and
meetings in workplaces to reject the capitulation of the bureaucratic union
leaderships who agree with the government behind the workers’ backs.
We
demand a general increase of salaries with automatic updates according to real
inflation until the family basket is covered; mobile 82% for all pensions and a
minimum that covers the basic basket; the reinstatement of all workers laid off
in recent years; the reopening of closed factories under the control of their
workers; an effective prohibition of layoffs; the distribution of working hours
without affecting salaries; a public works plan to generate genuine employment;
unrestricted collective bargaining; the nationalization of privatized companies
under workers control; the non-payment of the debt and an immediate break with
the IMF. The capitalists must pay for the crisis, not the workers!