Despite the popular rejection, despite the strong campaign of
denunciation from different social sectors and despite the impressivemobilization in the streets, last Wednesday, the reactionary and
ultra-liberal Government of Milei managed to sanction the new Bases Law
in the Senate. A direct and unprecedented attack on the people and
workers as a whole, which could not be possible without a heavily
militarized congress and fierce repression.
Although we will stop below to analyze what was approved and,
fundamentally, how this is going to transform our lives, it is
important, on the other hand, to measure the position in which the
national Government was with respect to its advance against those below
and How was the correlation of forces in a scenario of advanced
anti-rights and still tenuous resistance.
Firstly, we can note that, although there was a kind of cut of more than
65% of the original project, what seemed to be a partial failure of the
ultraliberal-reactionary experiment, we can actually translate it as a
political triumph for Milei. The Government - which started to negotiate
in the Senate from a small minority - not only comes out stronger but
has managed to gain time for the mid-term elections in 2025, where the
Government will try, with greater representation in Congress, to give -
even more - depth to ultraliberal barbarism.
It is true that the chamber of deputies still has to define the latest
version of the project, although everything indicates that the law is
going to come out. The government is even already negotiating to also
achieve approval of some points that were included in the original
version and that were rejected in the Senate (salary tax, personal
assets and privatizations), showing that the only thing that is in doubt
is the proportion of the damage that this law will cause. In this sense,
the only fundamental issue for those at the bottom is that it is
intended to destroy the rights and historical achievements of our
working class - numerous demands won throughout the 20th century - to
favor - to a much greater extent - the sectors employers, businesses and
large extractivist transnationals. Let's review in detail some of the
consequences of what has been approved in the Senate:
Javier Milei will have delegated powers for 1 year in administrative,
economic, financial and energy matters. This is one of the central
articles for the government in its agenda of extreme flexibility of the
economy, emptying of the public sector and attack on social
achievements, since it allows it to carry out reforms without the
intervention of Congress and enables it to carry out a covert
constitutional reform. That is, the government will be able to extract
through DNU some points of the project that were rejected during the
treatment, even in worse conditions. It should also be noted that
although certain limits were set on the intervention of some public
administration bodies, the underlying issue was not modified at all,
since the delegated powers will allow them to be defunded without having
to strictly dissolve them. Among other things, the delegated powers also
give the government free rein to implement tariff increases and cut the
budget, the consequences being more impoverishment for our people. A
first example of this offensive, barely obtaining approval, is the
scrapping of Argentine trains that Milei made official through DNU, to
begin its privatization process. Without a doubt, this granting of
"superpowers" to a government that, in every step it takes, shows its
anti-popular and reactionary character, is the extension of a blank
check for those at the top to advance with the adjustments and the
neoliberal reforms demanded by Yankee imperialism, international
financial capital and the bosses' sectors.
A completely regressive labor reform, which not only promotes and
legalizes informal and precarious work, but also fully attacks the union
organization. A completely regressive labor reform, which not only
promotes and legalizes informal and precarious work, but also fully
attacks the union organization. This is expressed in a series of points
that include the extension of the trial period to 6 months (up to 1
year), the elimination of fines for unregistered work, the introduction
of the "collaborators" figure in companies with up to 5 workers so that
They do not have to guarantee basic labor rights (bonuses, licenses,
paid vacations, etc.), the intention that women work up to 10 days
before giving birth, and even the authorization to impose a "support
fund" by collective agreement. "employment cessation" - similar to that
applied in construction - to replace seniority compensation. In order to
advance this attack, they limit the right to strike, giving free rein to
persecutory dismissals due to union activity, politics or forceful
measures, eliminating in this sense the right to reinstatement, and
replacing it with a mere fine. Meanwhile, for state workers, the
scenario is even more gloomy, not only because of the approval of the
delegated powers that will bring with it the dismantling of the public
sector and thousands of layoffs, but also because the approved project
institutionalizes the discount for work days. strike, advances the
discounts of the solidarity union dues, enables forced retirements and
also makes permanent workers available whose organizations close and
cannot be reassigned to other areas, being able to fire them without
respecting stability or leave pregnancy or illness.
The Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), which hands over our
territories to extractive projects so that a profound plundering of
common goods can develop, at the expense of the exploitation of nature
and the very survival of the people. This initiative, which foresees
30-year benefits for extractive investments, ends our lives for the
mining, oil and agribusiness transnationals, which if before they
already had extensive advantages of profitability and absence of
"controls", now have the path paved (from the legal and not from the
popular resistance), thanks to the annulment of the environmental laws
conquered in the heat of the struggle for the people. They will also not
have any conditions to present environmental impact studies, added to
the fact that they will pay less taxes on profits than a worker, they
will have zero withholdings for exports, they will not be obliged to buy
or sell in the local market and, after 3 years, they will not even have
to bring the foreign currency they generate into the country. Clearly, a
serious deepening of Argentina's extractivist productive matrix, which
is in line not only with the plundering policies of the Milei
government, but also with its denialist stance on climate change and the
environmental issue. The consequences, along with the devastation of the
environment, will be more poverty, the expulsion of communities from
their lands, a greater focus of conflicts in the territories and,
therefore, a repressive apparatus at the service of corporations.
A privatization package that aims to leave certain public roles and
services essential for the lives of workers in the hands of employers. A
recipe in the best style of the 90s, with consequences that are already
known to our people: deterioration in the quality of services, high
rates that make them inaccessible to workers, massive layoffs and an
exponential enrichment of concessionaire businessmen. Regarding this
privatization attempt, of the 41 public services that had been presented
in the first Base Law, 6 were finally left. With the new version
discussed in the Senate, the situation of entities and organizations
such as Energía Argentina, Intercargo, Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos,
Belgrano Cargas, Railway Operating Company and Road Corridors. However,
we emphasize again, the government anticipated that it will insist on
approving, during the discussion in deputies, the privatization of
Aerolíneas Argentinas, Correo Argentino and other public organizations
that were left out of the project.
In short, whatever the final version of the law is once it is discussed
in deputies, the rich will be richer and the poor will be poorer, the
bosses will be more empowered and the workers will have fewer rights.
The game of parliament is going to cost those of us at the bottom dearly
this time, as a result of a system that teaches delegation and trust in
a false democracy, which once again demonstrates that, ultimately, the
only thing it reproduces is a logic of exclusion and inequality,
protected by a legality alienated from the people, and the feeling of
being the "only possible means to resist and defend rights."
To measure the seriousness of the situation we must also take into
account the more than 30 detainees left as a result of the brutal
repressive operation mounted by the national government in coordination
with the city of Buenos Aires, which included the deployment of the four
federal forces. In a ruthless hunt, numerous people are still deprived
of their liberty, in common prisons and accused of totally
disproportionate and fabricated charges such as sedition and attempted
coup d'état. The sectors in struggle must repudiate repression and fight
for the immediate freedom of our detained comrades, without ignoring
that the mechanisms with which the repressive forces act are capable of
anything, so we have to be more alert than ever to prevent generate
precedents that condition the possibilities of opposition to this
reactionary and starving government.
Faced with this gloomy panorama, we are not unaware that there is still
a general absence of discontent, of anger from below, against this
unprecedented plundering. But we must not neglect that the history of
our country is not watertight, and on the contrary includes moments of
peak in struggles and social outbreaks. Every few years, the novelty of
politics crashes into the reality of a totally dependent economic and
financial system. The shortage, the precariousness, the deprivation in
the popular sectors give no respite, and from below no possible solution
is being found. The burden of constant high rates, the absence of food
in the poorest neighborhoods, the lack of work, new waves of layoffs and
suspensions, salary caps, meager retirements is beginning to be felt.
That union and social organizations remain mobilized is of vital
importance, not only to resist each advance on our demands, but also to
offer structure and foster a climate of struggle while popular
discontent increases. The strange theories of sectors of the union and
social bureaucracy that advocate leaving only "when people are no longer
enough" are practically a humiliating capitulation.
In effect, the people do not have time to wait a year for the electoral
pendulum of the political class to remember their interests. Trade
unions and social organizations must prepare the ground to channel the
increase in resistance.
From organized anarchism, we modestly reiterate what is already
evident: from the institutions of the system we can only expect the
prolongation of current conditions. The task is then to contribute to
the organization of popular forces with a classist and revolutionary
perspective, where the workers and the people themselves are the true
protagonists of political life and take destiny into our own hands.
Up those who fight!
Anarchist Federation of Rosario (FAR)
Anarchist Organization of Córdoba (OAC)
Anarchist Organization of Tucumán (OAT)
Anarchist Organization of Santa Cruz (OASC)
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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