Buenos Aires, Feb 19 (NA) – The CGT began in the first minutes of this Thursday its fourth general strike against the management of Javier Milei, while other union spaces will join the strike with a demonstration at the doors of Congress, where the Chamber of Deputies will debate the labor reform project. A day with little activity is expected due to the shutdown of all public transport, which includes the UTA bus drivers, who are part of the CGT although not its executive board. The project that introduces significant changes to labor legislation was the object of two mobilizations in rejection by the CGT: one in December at Plaza de Mayo and another last week at Plaza del Congress, and it has now motivated the first strike after the initiative obtained half sanction. The Secretary of Social Security and member of the CGT triumvirate, Jorge Sola, ratified the 24-hour national strike without a demonstration and assured that “Argentina will be paralyzed from end to end.” The CGT ratified the 24-hour strike for this Thursday: “Argentina will be paralyzed from end to end.” At a press conference at the headquarters on Azopardo Street, along with the other two co-secretaries of the labor center, Cristian Jerónimo (Glass Industry) and Octavio Argüello (Truckers), Sola stated that “we are not against a labor reform, but we are against losing rights.” Meanwhile, a group of “hardline” CGT unions (UOM, Oil Workers and Pilots, among others), along with the Autonomous CTA and the CTA of Workers, and “classist” left-wing unions, decided to reinforce the strike with a march to Congress, just as happened last week when the labor reform was debated in the Senate. “This bill we are debating, which is clearly unconstitutional, cannot be dealt with in extraordinary sessions because only the Executive's project is discussed, and to the union representations of millions of workers, only 5 minutes are given to address an issue of more than 200 articles,” stated this Wednesday the head of the Autonomous CTA, Hugo “Cachorro” Godoy. He said this while speaking at the commission debate in Deputies, before the project is dealt with in the chamber this Thursday. It is expected that with the change of the elimination of the controversial article on licenses, the project will be approved in Deputies and return to the Senate for consideration next week. If it becomes law, unionism will initiate the process of judicializing the labor reform, even though some initiatives that caused discomfort in the CGT, such as the union fee, were excluded from the file along the way.
