Javier Milei will face his fourth general worker's strike since the start of his term due to controversial Labor Reform

Since the return of democracy in Argentina there have been 46 general strikes called by the CGT, the largest worker's union in the country, most of them during the presidency of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) with at least 13.

The general strike will last 24 hours during the day that the new labor reform will be debated in congress on this Friday 19th, this law passed the senate 42 to 30.

Key labor reform points are:

• Allows for minimum work day to be 12 hours

• Allows for workers to be paid in any currency

• Allows for salary to be attached to productivity levels and accomplished objectives

• Allows companies to fraction paid time off/vacations to a minimum of 7 days

• Allows as an option to use overtime hours to be exchanged for shorter work day periods, overtime will still be paid 50% extra on normal days and 100% on holidays and weekends

• Forbids sectors from striking if their productivity falls below 75% and classifies them as "Essential", the current law considers essential only healthcare, water, gas, electricity and air control, the new law adds the following sectors:

  • Telecommunications

  • Naval commerce

  • Naval traffic control

  • Customs and Immigration

  • All levels of education except college

  • Childcare

  • Cash Transport

  • Security services (Which cannot even fall below 100%, effectively prohibiting them from striking)

• Forbids the following sectors, classified as "transcendent", from striking if their productivity falls below 50%:

  • Medicine industry

  • Mass transit

  • Commerce transit

  • TV and Radio

  • Steel mills

  • Aluminum industry

  • Chemical industry

  • Construction and cement industry

  • Food industry

  • Airports, mining, frozen meat, mail, agricultural, banks, tourism, restaurants, e-commerce, and so on.

• Worker's union meetings will not be considered paid time and will require permits from their employers

• Heavy penalizations for blockading operations during strikes, factory takeovers and if unions block workers if they don't adhere to strikes

• New law now favors individual agreements instead of colective ones, meaning that when a colective agreement ends workers will revert back to individual agreements automatically even if those offer worse conditions, the current law takes as a basis the colective agreement unless the individual agreement provide better benefits

• Enacts a period of 6 months where companies can register workers without being penalized and promotes hiring workers and registring them from day 1 in exchange for tax discounts

• Reduces worker's payments if they are injured outside of the workplace, worker's will now get 75% or 50% of their usual pay depending on the injury, the law also allows for employers to demand medicals tests on their employees to verify their injuries

Milei continues to face challenges as inflation continues to slowly rise up again, homelessness as gone up and now many working families will be stripped away of their benefits, will earn less and takes away the possibilty for unions to strike properly by calling practically every sector "Essential" or "Transcendent".