Buenos Aires, February 11 (NA) – The CGT, with the backing of the two CTAs, the left-wing labor movement, and opposition political groups, held a massive march in front of Congress on Wednesday to reject the labor reform. Tensions arose during the event due to clashes with police when a group of protesters knocked down part of the fence and threw Molotov cocktails. Most of the CGT's unions were located on Hipólito Yrigoyen Street, while left-wing political groups were on Avenida Rivadavia. It was in this sector that the violent incidents began. Protesters not affiliated with the CGT started to tear down fences and break sidewalks with hammers to throw stones at the police in charge of security. They then began to make Molotov cocktails with bottles, rags, and flammable liquid, which they threw at the fence and the police's position. The police responded with rubber bullets and water from fire trucks. In the afternoon, as the march was dispersing, at least seven people were arrested for the riots and four police officers were injured, confirmed by police sources to the Argentine News Agency. The CGT had issued a statement a few hours before the march began, expressing its opposition to the labor reform that the Senate was debating. Meanwhile, there were conflicting reports about whether the CGT leaders would give a speech during the march or at least read the statement they had published on their social networks. Some sources indicated this was planned but had to be canceled due to incidents provoked by the left, while other spokespeople said they were only marching. However, this is not the first time a CGT march has ended with incidents caused by left-wing sectors; the precedent of the lectern with the entity's logo on Azopardo Street, which was destroyed by protesters while the central's leaders fled the place flanked by members acting as bodyguards, is still fresh. In its statement, the CGT addressed the senators debating the project during the day and demanded they “act responsibly,” warning that the government's initiative “does not solve the problems of work, only aggravates them.” “Today is a day where each senator must be clear about their position before this initiative that seeks to dismantle labor rights in Argentina and place the worker in a situation of vulnerability and uncertainty,” the organization warned. The central also insisted that the initiative has “two evident objectives: the degradation of working conditions and the weakening of the union organizations that defend the rights of workers.” Meanwhile, unions from the CTA Autónoma and the CTA of Workers carried out a 24-hour strike to reinforce the rejection of the labor reform and denounced that “the protest was repressed by a security operation that tried to evict the protesters with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets.” “The strike and the mobilization were part of the struggle plan defined by the Trade Union Unity Front, which last week was expressed in a massive march in Córdoba; it continued with a mobilization of more than 20,000 people in Rosario and plans new actions in different provinces in the coming weeks,” they added in a statement. From the left, Nuevo MAS leader Manuel Castañeira complained on his networks that “Milei's government represses the mobilization at Congress while rushing to secretly pass its labor counter-revolution to impose modern slavery on all workers.”
