Buenos Aires, Feb 27 (NA) – The organizations that make up the new United Front of Unions (FreSU)—comprising the two CTA confederations, CGT unions, and social movements grouped in 'Territories in Struggle'—gathered in a massive column that marched towards the National Congress, where the Senate once again took up the labor reform project after the modifications made in the Chamber of Deputies.
From the rally on Avenida de Mayo and Salta, Hugo 'Cachorro' Godoy, the general secretary of the Central, stated: 'The Government wants to impose a cemetery silence; for people not to mobilize, to accept this spectacle of the nation's surrender and loss of rights. We know we must intensify a plan of struggle to recover the rights that a group of treacherous lawmakers have stolen from us in one stroke. This law seeks to benefit the large economic groups while putting workers on their knees'.
Godoy added: 'Our responsibility is to rebel against this reality,' he stated in comments picked up by the Argentine News Agency. 'This requires unity, determination, and courage to unite with those willing to fight. That is what FreSU expresses: the will of organizations determined to unify forces to stop this advance against national sovereignty, industries, and the living conditions of our people,' sentenced Godoy.
During the day, the juvenile penal regime reform project was also repudiated, which directly affects the children of working-class families and could be passed in the same session.
Likewise, Mariana Mandakovic, the Central's assistant secretary, added: 'This struggle does not end here. In Argentina, we are going to build a great feminist strike and mobilization,' she assured, noting that this would be within the framework of the International Day of Women and Working Diversities on March 9.
In the same vein, Ricardo Peidro, assistant secretary of CTA, stated: 'We are resisting this reform because of what it implies for the entire working class. We are going to continue organizing to go on the offensive in the neighborhoods and in the workplaces. There is a growing awareness of what this means and, undoubtedly, the time will come when true representatives of the people manage to repeal these laws'.
Closing Act
The march proceeded along Avenida de Mayo to the vicinity of the Congress, where a closing act was held. There, after singing the national anthem, a document agreed upon by the organizations was read.
Among other concepts, it qualifies the reform as negative in every way, 'because it reflects a vengeful class spirit: it deregulates labor protection, takes basic rights away from workers, and promotes precariousness, it cheapens the value of work and advances against the sovereignty of our time, it attacks indemnifications and pushes for dismissals, it defunds the solidary social security system, it destroys collective agreements and strikes against the different tools of collective organization'.
The closing of the act was led by Daniel Yofra, the general secretary of the Oilseed Federation.
