Right-wing populist Javier Milei has been president-elect just four days and already Argentina\u2019s unions and social organisations are vowing pushback and even protests if he makes good on his promises to slash the size of the state and privatise companies. Milei, who famously campaigned with a revving chainsaw to demonstrate what he would do to public spending, says radical measures are needed to get the South American country\u2019s moribund economy back to life and reduce annual inflation by 140 per cent.<\/p>\n
The day after winning the election with a wider-than-expected margin, 56 per cent to 44 per cent, the libertarian said in a radio interview that \u201ceverything that can be in the hands of the private sector will be in the hands of the private sector.\u201d He has said he wants to privatise state-owned media companies and state-run oil and gas firms and has raised the possibility of privatising water distribution and train service, as well as ending all public works. Labour union leaders said on Thursday they are paying close attention to what the libertarian president-elect says and what they are hearing is in opposition to their interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe clearly have as a central idea for the country development, with production and the creation of jobs, and it seems that all (Milei\u2019s) affirmations about cuts in the economy, about privatisations and other things do not go down this path,\u201d H\u00e9ctor Dear, the secretary general of the powerful General Confederation of Labour umbrella organisation, said following a meeting with labour leaders. The most emphatic opposition so far to Milei\u2019s privatisation plans came from the head of the Airline Pilots Association, Pablo Bir\u00f3, who said Wednesday that Milei \u201cwill have to literally kill us\u201d to go through with his plan to change the ownership structure of state-owned airline Aerolineas Argentinas.<\/p>\n
Most labour leaders, however, have emphasised a wait-and-see attitude, saying they\u2019re on alert but recognise Argentines voted for Milei and will wait for him to implement policies. \u201cIn the moment they move forward with reforms related to labour rights, both individual and collective, and when the labour organisations affected by these adjustments request it, the CGT will take a stance,\u201d Dear said. Leaders of leftist social organisations also held a meeting on Thursday to discuss their response to Milei\u2019s policies and \u201ca plan for struggle against austerity\u201d that will involve street protests.<\/p>\n
Milei has warned of inevitable pain ahead as a result of his policies, repeatedly saying that \u201cthere is no money\u201d, noting \u201cit\u2019s likely we\u2019ll have to endure six tough months, but they will be the foundation for Argentina\u2019s takeoff.\u201d He has also recognised there\u2019s likely to be protests as a response to his policies. \u201cThe law will be applied, and I will not let myself be extorted,\u201d he said. Milei will \u201cprobably want to carry out the privatisations fairly quickly,\u201d said Nicol\u00e1s Sald\u00edas, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit for Latin America and the Caribbean, who warned that \u201ca lot of social protest\u201d may very well be inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of labour unions are highly mobilised, this is a high stakes situation for them,\u201d Sadias added, noting that \u201cMilei is going to face a lot of resistance on the streets.\u201d Argentina has a long tradition of labour unions and powerful social organisations that block roads and carry out strikes to protest as a way to pressure the government to heed their demands, and respecting the right to protest has been a hallmark of most of the governments that have ruled the country over the past two decades. In addition, due to a history of violent response to these protests that have included deaths, law enforcement is often hesitant to break them up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Right-wing populist Javier Milei has been president-elect just four days and already Argentina\u2019s unions and social organisations are vowing pushback\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":12118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[3374,1913,312,3531,1916,3532,1748,3770,3553,3769],"class_list":["post-12750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-argentina","tag-argentina-presidential-elections","tag-economy","tag-far-right","tag-javier-milei","tag-privatisation","tag-protests","tag-revival","tag-state-owned-enterprises","tag-unrest"],"reading_time":"4 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}