Montevideo/Paris. The general strike in Argentina announced for next Wednesday has already called organized labor in other countries into action in advance. The major unions in Uruguay and France are mobilizing support.
The long-established Uruguayan trade union federation PIT-CNT (Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadores – Convención Nacional de Trabajadores) does not want to remain indifferent to the attack on our Argentine sisters and brothers and opposes the economic program of the new Argentine government, which “risks the viability of millions of people, including thousands of Uruguayan compatriots living on the opposite coast”. Argentina and Uruguay share hundreds of kilometers of border, and the capitals of the two countries lie opposite each other on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.
The union condemns the measures taken by the government of President Javier Milei, which “severely affect employment, rights and freedoms, criminalize protest and impose a drastic adjustment on the backs of the population.” Furthermore, Milei initiates changes to the Constitution and transfers “enormous powers” to himself “without Congress debating them.”
The association calls on “all unions and workers to demonstrate on January 24th at 1 p.m. in front of the gates of the Argentine Embassy in Montevideo to express our solidarity and our rejection of the anti-people measures,” according to a statement from the PIT-CNT .
French unions also expressed their solidarity with the strike on the 24th and called for people to go to the Argentine embassy in Paris.
Six trade union confederations representing workers in France have published a communiqué expressing their solidarity with workers and unions in Argentina.
The Argentine daily Tiempo Argentino highlights that the support comes from the same organizations that organized the globally noticed protests in March 2023 against the pension reform decreed by President Emmanuel Macron. The manifesto of the French trade unions is supported by the Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT), the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), Force Ouvriere (FO), Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU), the Union Nationale des Syndicats Autonomous (UNAS) and the Union Syndicale Solidaires.
The organizations emphasize that “Milei’s policies profoundly reflect the character of the extreme right, which poses a deadly threat to the world of work, public services and the environment and disregards the most basic democratic principles.”
They point out that the Mileis program is “an offensive against the achievements of several decades of social and trade union struggles in Argentina.” That is why they support “the call of the country’s three trade union confederations for a nationwide strike on January 24th” and are calling for a rally on the same day at 6 p.m. in front of the Argentine embassy in Paris “to show our solidarity.”