Can Javier Milei win his fight against Argentina’s strikers?

An alliance with the trade union movements helped catapult Juan Peron, the icon of Argentine politics, to the presidency in the 1940s, and the Peronist political movement he created has had a close relationship with the unions ever since. It’s little surprise that they have opposed Argentina’s new president Javier Milei – very much not a Peronist – almost from the moment of his election victory in November. They have already organised street protests against his sweeping economic reforms, and forced him to temporarily shelve some of his plans with well-directed court challenges.

The latest of their efforts came when the powerful CGT union – which has an estimated seven million members – called the first general strike of Milei’s administration. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Buenos Aires this week to oppose the president and his proposed reforms. There have been 42 general strikes since the return of democracy in Argentina in 1983, but this latest walkout has come notably early in Milei’s term. According to the Economist, the average Argentine president has around two years before the unions strike. Milei has been in office just 45 days.

A self-proclaimed libertarian and anarcho-capitalist, Milei came to power in a country facing one of the world’s worst economic crises, with both unemployment and inflation rising. He has promised a radical shakeup of Argentina’s economic orthodoxy, even if some of his headline proposals – ‘dollarising’ the economy and shuttering the central bank – appear to have taken a backseat for now. In December, Milei unveiled his ‘omnibus’ bill, which has hundreds of reforms and regulations aimed at cutting regulations and encouraging economic growth.

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The omnibus bill is currently being debated in congress, and it is these discussions that the ongoing weekly protests, and the strike, are attempting to influence. Thousands of public sector workers have already been laid off, and workers’ rights have been diluted, as part of Milei’s other reforms. Paola Vecchio, a 46-year-old teacher, was protesting in the capital.

‘This law that the president wants to put in place is against workers and against our rights. It is only good for wealthy people,’ she said. ‘The economy needs to be fixed, but not like this.’ 

The CGT says it will ‘not yield an inch’ on workers’ rights. The unions, however, might be overplaying their hand. Although the groups benefit from being wealthy, powerful, and well organised, many ordinary Argentinians – Milei’s base – see union members as rich and privileged. 

‘Milei could flip this to be a part of him taking on the “caste”’, says Chatham House’s Christopher Sabatini. The president can present the unions’ protestations as the dying gasps of a political machine that has ruined Argentina. With the exception of a four-year gap from 2015 to 2019, the Peronist political machine has governed for the past two decades. And of the 42 strikes called in the last 40 years, more than half have taken place during a non-Peronist government, even though the Peronists have ruled for roughly three quarters of that time. No strikes were called during the presidency of Alberto Ferndández, whom Milei replaced, even as the economic crisis grew. 

The CGT and the other unions are trying to get used to their ideology being out of fashion, and out of power. ‘The opposition doesn’t know how to be an opposition’, says analyst Nicolas Saldias. Unlike the Peronists, Milei loses nothing from standing against them, and he has little need to win them over. Worst still for them, Milei’s major reforms haven’t even been enacted yet. He can say the unions are protesting over nothing. Do they want inflation to stay at 200 per cent? Do they want unemployment to remain high? They’re getting in the way of progress, and making ordinary Argentinians poorer, Milei will say. If the unions want to stop to his radical plans, they will have to come up with a better plan. Quickly.