What saves Milei in this situation, is the lack of a strong real political alternative and the role of the trade union bureaucracy in preventing a real struggle to turn the tables and topple the government.
Hundreds of thousands of Argentinians flooded the streets on 2 October in defence of public universities and against president Javier “Chainsaw” Milei. According to La Nacion, 270,000 were present in front of the National Congress building, with tens of thousands marching in many other cities. Students, teachers and university staff were joined by workers in the state airline struggling against privatisation, civil servants, trade unionists, social movements and political parties.
Since coming to power in December last year, Milei has launched a neoliberal “shock therapy”, aiming to cut public spending, deregulate and cut taxes for big companies, while attacking the right to protest and strike. The result has been a dramatic increase in poverty, but also in resistance.
There have been two general strikes and several days of enormous demonstrations, but there is no plan to unite and escalate the struggle, with the aim of bringing down Milei and his government. Incredibly, the leadership of the main trade union federation, the CGT, has declared a “truce”, saying there is “no mood for strike action” — but the ongoing demonstrations and strikes prove the opposite.
Milei launches an all-out offensive
Immediately after coming to power, Milei went on an all-out offensive. After two days, on 12 December, his finance minister, Caputo, announced a package which included suspending all public works, freezing pensions and other public spending, cutting grants for provincial budgets, cutting energy subsidies and firing tens of thousands public servants. The cuts to subsidies together with a devaluation of the peso sent prices through the roof.
On 14 December, Patricia Bullrich, minister for Security, presented a “Public Order Protocol” attacking the right to protest, especially protests that disturb traffic, such as marches and road blockades.
Then on 20 December, came the “Mega-decree”, a package with 366 articles, aiming to deregulate the economy. State companies would begin to function as private enterprises, with the possibility of going bankrupt, preparing the way for privatization. Several changes were made to the labour laws, lowering compensation for sackings. Road blocks, a common protest tactic by unions and the “piqueteros” movement were made illegal. The right to strike was limited, requiring 75% of workers to remain at work on strike days in “essential services”, like education, health, transport and telecommunication. Rent controls were abolished and rents can now be set in dollars.
Then on 27 December, the so-called “omnibus bill” was presented, including 664 articles. It grants the President emergency powers over the economy, privatizes state companies, further deregulates the economy, and lowers pensions. It also included a massive “Incentive Regime for Large Investments”, which gives wide ranging tax exemptions to companies that invest more than US$200 million. These benefits could last up to 30 years and during this time no measures that harm the interests of these companies can be implemented by any government.
This opens the way mainly for more foreign investment, extracting natural resources and damaging the environment, which will benefit only a few big domestic companies. This led to a protest in May from small and medium sized companies. It follows the pattern of some countries in the global south, like the neighbouring Brazil, which had relatively strong domestic industries, but is instead now depending more on exports of commodities to rich countries for growth.
The forces of the capitalist market, including the IMF, have been excited by Milei’s ravages, with the prospect of increasing profits at the expense of workers and the dismantling of the public sector. Argentina is the biggest debtor to the IMF, with an outstanding debt of US$ 43 billion.
Increasing poverty
The result of this “shock therapy” was another steep fall for an economy that was already in crisis. The GDP has been falling for 5 consecutive quarters and 650,000 have lost their jobs. The number of people living below the poverty line has increased by 5.3 million, in a population of 46 million. Two out of three children live in poverty.
The price of public utilities and services, like energy, gas, water and transport have increased by 375% between December and August. In the same period, the minimum wage has increased by only 68%. While it has slowed down more recently, total inflation in the 12 months up to August was still at 237%.
However, this fall in purchasing power is not new. It comes on top of years of increasing inflation. According to figures from La Nacion, real incomes fell by 7.8% in the first half of this year. For those with lower incomes, the fall has been 14.8%. But if you go back to since 2017, since the coming to power of the right-wing government of Macri, through “centre-left” Peronist government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner up until today, the total fall in real incomes has been 33.2% (44.4% for those with low income).
Resistance from the start
The first protests against Milei’s attacks came already on 20 December. Massive pressure from below forced the bureaucratic leadership of the CGT and the two CTAs (large unions primarily based in the public sector) to call a general strike on January 24, which forced the government to withdraw the “omnibus bill” temporarily.
Then, demonstrations on international women’s day — 8 March — were very big. Argentina has a very strong feminist movement, known internationally for the Ni Una Menos movement against gender violence and the mass struggle that won the right to abortion in 2020. Despite his clear anti-choice views and agenda, Milei hasn’t dared to touch the right to abortion at this point, but increased poverty and his cuts to public services hit hardest against women.
Following this, annual marches on 24 March, remembering the victims of the dictatorship that ended in 1983, were massive, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets. This was fuelled by the position of the government on the crimes of the military. Milei denies the scale of the crimes of the dictatorship, which led to 30,000 “disappearances”. A group of MPs from his party visited condemned officers in jail, arguing that they should be released or have lighter sentences. Vice president Victoria Villaruel held a homage to the “victims of terrorism” in the Senate, arguing that left activists who were active during the dictatorship should be prosecuted.
The battle for education continues
The biggest day of protest until now was on 23 April, in defence of public universities, which are in an emergency situation, due to lack of funding. Over a million people marched that day in 70 cities, much more than expected. There is a strong will to defend free public university, which is accessible for working class youth.
The budget for universities has been cut by 30% this year. University teachers have lost 30% in purchasing power of their wages and non-teaching staff have lost 50%, leaving the majority of university workers below the poverty line. The grant that students receive doesn’t even cover the bus fare.
As a result of the protests, the government increased the funding for running costs of universities by 270%, but that excludes the wages and makes up only 10% of the total budget.
In September, the Congress passed a bill that restores both funding to universities and wages, but Milei has vetoed this, offering instead a miserable 6.8% wage increase for the rest of the year. The protest called on 2 October aimed to pressure congress to overturn the veto. But on 9 October, by a margin of only a few votes, the veto was upheld by the Chamber of Deputies. Immediately after the decision, the university trade unions declared a strike, and dozens of universities were occupied by students.
The cost of the bill is not high, but Milei sees it as an attack against his principle of ‘there is no money’ and ‘deficit zero’. It is also a case of singling out what he sees as one key group of resistance. A commentator from La Nacion compared this with Reagan’s attack against the struggle of air traffic controllers and Thatcher against the miners in the 1980s, where key militant groups of workers were confronted and defeated, paving the way for wider defeats of the working class at the start of the neoliberal era.
The trade union bureaucracy declares truce at a crucial moment
The government had negotiated a scaled-down variant of the “omnibus bill”, reducing the number of articles from 664 to 232. State companies up for privatisation were reduced from 40 to 8, removing companies like the state oil firm YPF, the postal service and the state media company. But the main thrust of the attacks was kept.
The package was approved in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) in February and April, and then went to the Senate.
In response, a new general strike was held on 9 May. However, after the strike, the CGT leadership declared a “truce” with the government, saying that there was “no mood for strikes” and went into “institutional dialogue” with the government, including on proposals for a new labour law.
The CGT still supported and mobilised for protests, but without putting its full weight behind it. This evidently weakened the movement at a crucial moment. The decisive voting on the bill in the Senate was set for 12 June, and there was a huge new protest. But the leadership of the CGT started winding down the protest even before the vote was taken. This made it easier for the police to attack, which they did. More than 30 demonstrators were arrested, most of them on their way home. Five are still in custody, accused of being “terrorists” trying to “topple the government”, threatened with long prison sentences.
In the end, the vote in the Senate was tied, 36–36, with Vice President Villaruel then casting the decisive vote in favour. This shows that it was possible to stop the bill, and the treacherous role of the trade union bureaucracy. Instead of winding down the resistance after the 9 May general strike, an escalating plan of action, including longer general strikes, could have forced the abandonment of the bill in its entirety.
The protests continue
In spite of the truce from the trade union bureaucracy, there are many ongoing protests and strikes.
Pensioners have been protesting against the loss of purchasing power, leaving many in deep poverty. Cuts to pensions mean that the payment of interest on the state debt has now overtaken pensions as the biggest item of spending in the budget. The cost of a single canister of pepper spray, used frequently by the police against protestors, is worth more than the minimum pension that many receive!
Congress passed a law in September increasing pensions by merely 8.1%, but even that was too much for Milei, who again vetoed it. A protest was called on 11 September, when the vote on overturning the veto was held, but the government managed to get the one third of the votes necessary to uphold the veto.
Workers in the state airline have held several strikes in September, demanding wage increases. The government answered by declaring flight transport as an “essential service”, demanding 50% of the service function during a strike and issuing a decree allowing the use of foreign workers and even aeroplanes from foreign companies as strikebreakers.
The state airline was privatised in the 1990s, but renationalised in 2008. It was among the state companies that was withdrawn from the list due to be privatised earlier this year, but has now been included again by Milei, as revenge for the strikes.
The minister of security has issued new rules to forbid union blockades and pickets that hurt the activity of private companies, increasing repression. The government also declared that there will be no wage increases in the public sector until the end of the year and that in the private sector there will be a cap of maximum 2% raises per month.
On 15 September, the budget for next year was presented, with new huge cuts. This time the main brunt will be on the provinces. The council of rectors of the public universities warns also that the budget proposed covers only half of the need of the universities. So, the struggle is due to continue.
A weak government
In spite of all these attacks, the working class is not defeated and there is a willingness to fight. But there is a lack of coordination from below and combative leadership, leaving the struggle fragmented and weakened, due to the role of the trade union bureaucracy.
Milei’s government is not strong. His coalition, ‘Liberty Advances’, has only 39 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Together with the former right-wing president Macri’s coalition and some minor forces, the government bloc only totals 84. The main opposition is the Peronist block, with 99 seats, and the left block FIT-U (Workers’ Left Front — Unity, a coalition of far-left parties) with 5. In the Senate, the government block has 24 out 72 seats.
So, any proposal that Milei passes must go through negotiations, with many being blocked or watered down. Milei had to abandon or postpone some of his more far-reaching proposals even to form his government block with Macri, such as his promises to dollarize the economy and close the Central Bank. In spite of all Milei’s rhetoric against “the caste” of the old parties, he had to include establishment figures in key positions in his government like Luis Caputo, the finance minister, who had the same position in Macri’s government and Patricia Bullrich, the security minister, who was Macri’s candidate for President in the last elections.
It has been easier for the government to force through decrees, as it takes a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn it. The only decree that has been overturned up to now was the huge increase in the budget of the security agency. The “mega-decree” from December is still in effect. It was voted down in the Senate, but there is no date for it to be voted in the lower house.
How does the government survive?
Many of Milei’s proposals are supported by the right in general and cheered by the markets.
Moreover, the Peronist bloc is not always consistent in their opposition. Several deputies and Peronist provincial governors have been open to negotiate concrete proposals. The Peronists voted against the omnibus bill and other central attacks, but their opposition is mainly in the form of speeches in parliament. They are not interested in mobilising a real resistance that can topple the government. They are happy to let the government make some of the more unpopular adjustments that they would also have made, to cut the deficit and pay the public debt, like they did during their last government. They do not want to come to power under the pressure from a mass movement, during a deep economic crisis. So, they are happy to see the government take the blows and lose popularity, focusing on the next parliamentary elections in 2025 and presidential election in 2027.
Milei managed to get elected in an atmosphere of general crisis for the traditional political parties. The economic and social crisis had been deepening during both Macri’s right-wing government and Alberto Fernández’ centre-left government of “capitalism with a human face”. The vote for Milei went beyond a more reactionary minority. He posed as anti-system, as someone that would shake things up and attack the privileges of the “caste”. This follows the trend of Bolsonaro and Trump. And in the same way, what soon became clear was that his attacks were not directed to the elite, but against the poor.
However, Milei has managed to keep relatively strong support until recently. Many saw that the crisis didn’t start with his government and had illusions in Milei’s promise that there would be a short sharp crisis and that soon things would start getting better. But as the crises and attacks pile up, and under the impact of the struggle, this can reverse quickly. A poll in September showed a 15% decline in popularity for Milei.
However, even if he may suffer defeats in the next elections, he will continue to be a threat and will not go away, if a real alternative is not built. Again, we can see the same trend with Trump, Bolsonaro and other far right figures and parties around the world.
It is clear that the ruling classes around the world are adapting to a situation of increasing crisis, in a context of increasing competition between the two imperialist blocs around the US and China. A head-on confrontation with the working class is inevitable and traditional parties are increasingly in crisis. There is a tendency to increase repression and use reactionary ideas. That is why the capitalists are ready to work with figures like Milei, who are ready to bulldoze through attacks on the rights of the working class, using a reactionary agenda to divide the resistance.
We need a strategy to defeat the far right and the agenda of attacks
What saves Milei in this situation, is the lack of a strong real political alternative and the role of the trade union bureaucracy in preventing a real struggle to turn the tables and topple the government. The Peronist leadership of the trade unions and the official opposition have no real alternative to this system and cannot take the struggle to a clear conclusion.
However, Argentina has a strong tradition of struggle by trade unions, youth, women and social movements, and the working class is still ready and fighting.
The left block FIT-U has had important support in recent elections, winning between 800,000 and 1.5 million votes. But unfortunately, it has been more effective as an electoral front than acting as a united force in the movements, due to sectarian infighting. If that can be overcome, the FIT-U could play an important role in uniting the different struggles from below, increasing the pressure on the trade union bureaucracy to end the truce and call a new general strike as part of a plan of escalating struggle to topple the government. A fundamental part of the process is to build a strong socialist left that can show a way out of this system of exploitation, oppression and misery.
