The Peronist trade unions, which are united in the powerful General Trade Union Confederation (CGT), demonstrated their assembly power in Buenos Aires with a large demonstration against “speculators and price makers”. The slogan was worthy of a tightrope walker who had to protest against the economic crisis without opposing Alberto Fernández’s government. They did not march to the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, but to the Congress. But it was a day of duplicity, with coded messages to the rivals within, that ravaged the Casa Rosada today.
The CGT is in the hands of a triumvirate that traces the split between President Fernández; his vice, Cristina Kirchner; and the new “super minister” for the economy, Sergio Massa. To solve the mess, the unions chose “the businessmen who” highlight the products every day as their enemies. And they have promised the President that if “he deposits what needs to be deposited, the workers will bank it on him”.
The lyrics belong to Pablo Moyano, a truck unionist who reports to Cristina Kirchner. Its members gathered a few blocks from the obelisk at 9 de Julio Avenue. Moyano grabbed a microphone, stood on a makeshift stage and spoke to the crowd. “They want to deal an institutional blow to the government, that’s why we did this march. They attack the government and the leaders every day. It won’t be the first march if this continues, there will be hundreds of demonstrations to denounce these guys,” he said, clarifying who he meant by “these guys.” “The price makers, the businessmen, the AEA [Asociación Empresaria Argentina]the media, Mercado Libre, the banks that want to stage an institutional coup against the government,” he listed.
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Later, at a press conference attended by Héctor Daer and Carlos Acuña, the triumvirate warned that support comes at a price. CGT leaders said they expected the government to “take note” of the scale of the call and heed their demands. They reject a salary increase of a fixed amount that compensates for rising annual inflation of up to 71%, as Minister Massa offers, and they call for the universalization of social assistance, which the poorest families now receive for each child. The rejection of the fixed amount presupposes that the free wage negotiations that unions have with companies are maintained without state intervention.
The CGT had announced the march this Wednesday a month in advance. She used the time to unify criteria and neutralize the diversity of political tendencies that run through them. The internal ones are a reflection of the struggles dividing ruling Peronism today, with a president and vice president who don’t speak to each other and an economy minister who has come as a savior. The labor movement, the backbone of Peronism, is also under attack from increasingly powerful external enemies.
Year after year, the succession of economic crises has reduced the number of employees and emptied unions such as the metalworkers of the affiliated unions. Power today passes through the social movements or pickets and other unions that never belonged to the CGT but are still very numerous, like the one that brings together state employees. The recalcitrant unions and pickets were even encouraged to challenge the CGT with a parallel march that ended in front of the Casa Rosada.
Fernández was not at government headquarters at the time. He preferred to travel to the north of the country, where he commemorated a new anniversary of the death of independence hero José de San Martín. He gave a lengthy speech there, without mentioning the demonstrations in Buenos Aires, and celebrated what he saw as Argentina “recovering, growing and moving forward”.