Buenos Aires (EFE).- The protest against the labor reform being debated by the Argentine Senate on Wednesday began with protesters throwing stones and at least one Molotov cocktail, and police responding with tear gas and rubber bullets, which caused great tension in the Congress Square in Buenos Aires.
Hundreds of people gathered in the center of Buenos Aires and other cities, such as Córdoba, on Wednesday afternoon, while senators debated a law that would radically change working conditions in Argentina inside the legislative building.
Social organizations, political groups, and unions, including the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the country’s largest workers’ central, called for the protesters.
«The government wants to sell this labor reform as modernization, but it is clearly a setback for all workers and will mean complete slavery in terms of working conditions,» Soledad Mosquera, the general secretary of the Teachers’ Association for Secondary and Higher Education (ADEMYS), told EFE during the protest.
Juan Carlos Giordano, a deputy for the United Left Front, also told EFE that what is being debated is «a pro-business, slave-like labor reform.»
«The law is an attack on the labor movement. Argentina is experiencing a recession, with falling wages and pensions. This reform makes layoffs easier,» the legislator commented.
The bill’s central points include creating a Labor Assistance Fund (FAL) to finance severance pay, reducing the base for calculating it, changing overtime pay, and limiting the right to strike.
According to the agreement from the previous parliamentary meeting, the bill will be voted on as a whole, and then each title will be voted on individually. A long day is expected, possibly ending near midnight.
The government of Argentine President Javier Milei anticipated applying the anti-picket protocol and deployed a significant number of federal forces, which has caused considerable tension around the cordoned-off Congress building. EFE
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