National universities have called for a 72-hour strike, which will begin this Wednesday, with the aim of highlighting the demands they have been making for weeks for the National Government to apply the Financing Law passed by Congress on October 21. Noticias Argentinas reported. In statements to Noticias Argentinas, several teacher unions stated that the administration of President Javier Milei must carry out the 'effective' enforcement of the University Budget Law to achieve 'teacher salary recomposition' and 'in defense of public education'. Pilar Barbas, secretary of the Argentine University Federation (FUA), assured that, to date, salaries 'have not been recomposed' and lamented that, despite holding a third federal march, they were unable to get the President 'to want to comply with the law'. 'The money is there. We must continue to deepen the protests against the labor reform and the plan this administration has, which is against the public university, against public hospitals, and against labor rights,' she indicated. Meanwhile, the general secretary of the Guild Association of Teachers of the University of Buenos Aires (AGD-UBA), Ileana Celoto, also spoke with Noticias Argentinas and stated that this measure, in addition to demanding the enforcement of a law that establishes a salary increase, aims to 'stop the emptying out' of public education. 'The law must be applied, with no further delay, not only because it is the law, but because not doing so is unconstitutional. We must fight against the impunity of an ultraright-wing government and its accomplices who do not want to apply a conquered and necessary law for the country's development,' the deputy sentenced. 'We must stop saying there is no money because this Government decided to defund the national and public universities and stopped allocating money for debt payments,' she stated. 'We are defending the public university so that it does not become an empty shell with equipment that can no longer carry out the tasks for which it was designated,' she indicated. Lastly, the national deputy for the Workers' Left Front (FIT/IS) and a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UBA, Mercedes de Mendieta, emphasized the critical economic situation of university workers and described the remuneration they receive as 'miserable salaries'. 'Every day that passes, the emptying out of the public university deepens. It is already a debt, not a demand,' she sentenced. Likewise, Celoto detailed that the low remunerations are causing a crisis in the university staff and that they 'can no longer sustain' the tasks they must carry out with the salaries they receive: 'In many cases, they are below the poverty line,' she added. Furthermore, she explained that this situation translates into 'requests for a change in dedication,' that is, a reduction in working hours, and warned about the long-term consequences of this problem because 'teams are being emptied out.' 'A teacher who enters and is a first-year assistant works 10 hours a week and earns 2,000 pesos an hour. Today, according to what the law stipulates, they owe us a 44% salary increase.'
