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Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 10:10 AM
Subject: [mobilize-globally] Argentine unions join forces for nationwide strike
Subject:
[mayday2k] Rueters: Argentine unions join forces
for nationwide strike
Date:
Thu, 16 Nov 2000 19:11:48 EST
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Argentine unions join forces for nationwide strike
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Argentina's largest union,
the General
Workers' Confederation (CGT), on Thursday backed a
nationwide strike call for
next week by hard-liners against President Fernando de la
Rua's economic
reforms aimed at regaining investors' confidence.
The board of the "official CGT" -- a labor federation that
is split in two,
with the "dissident CGT" leading the strike call earlier
this week together
with the Argentine Workers' Center (CTA) union -- also
announced plans for a
strike in December.
"Next Friday we will bring the country to a standstill.
We'll fight on until
the government changes its economic policy," said Rodolfo
Daer, head of the
"official CGT," which is criticized by its more hard-line
rivals for its
moderate style of opposition to the ruling center-left
Alliance and its
Peronist successors.
The "official CGT" plans a 24-hour stoppage next Friday,
while the "dissident
CGT, the CTA and a new group coordinating roadblocks all
over Argentina, the
Combative Classwar Movement (CCC), have scheduled 36 hours
of protest from
noon Thursday.
The strike call was initially in response to the death of an
unemployed man
last week during clashes between police and people manning
roadblocks in the
northern province of Salta. Thousands of the 15.4 percent of
Argentine
workers who are jobless or 30 percent who are poor have
blocked roads to
demand jobs, food and welfare programs.
But strike calls gathered strength after last week's news of
another wave of
austerity measures aimed at bringing the budget deficit
under control to
secure funding and support for South America's No. 2 economy
from foreign
investors and multilateral lending bodies, especially the
International
Monetary Fund.
De la Rua's center-left government is in crisis after only
11 months in
power, because of the poor prospects of ending over two
years of economic
stagnation, concern over Argentina's ability to pay its
foreign debt, and
infighting in the ruling coalition.
"This government has given in to the international financial
bodies," said
Daer.
The government, which came to power last year promising to
clean up the
corruption of 10 years' Peronist rule and build a more just
society, appealed
to unions to drop the strike plans.
"It's not the time for strikes," Labor Minister Patricia
Bullrich told
reporters. "The country is going through difficult times and
we have to get
over it."
"Nobody ignores the situation the country is in, after 30
months of economic
stagnation and poverty," De la Rua's spokesman Ricardo
Ostuni said a day
earlier. "But strikes don't resolve the country's problems,
they just make
them worse."
The strike and the roadblocks come at the worst time for De
la Rua, who is
trying to convince investors, upon whom Argentina depends
for hard currency,
that the economy is under control.
He has secured a preliminary deal with provincial governors,
14 out of 23 of
whom are opposition Peronists, to freeze public spending
until 2005. But
there are objections to plans to raise women's retirement
age to 65 and scrap
state pensions.
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