Argentina’s Milei faces 2nd general strike in 5 months
Argentina’s President Javier Milei faced his second general strike on Thursday in just ve months in of
ce, as workers angered by austerity cuts brought the capital to a standstill.
Public transport in Buenos Aires was reduced to a trickle for some three million daily commuters, while schools, banks and service stations remained closed, and garbage was left uncollected.
The 24-hour protest was called by labour unions in support of “a digni ed wage” for Argentines battling a severe economic crisis, with annual ination nearing 300% and poverty aecting one in two people.
Some 400 ights had to be cancelled, aecting about 70,000 passengers, according to the ALTA Latin American air transport association.
Paralysed exports
The port of Rosario, which exports 80% of Argentina’s agro-industrial production, was all but paralysed in the midst of its busiest season.
Self-declared “anarchocapitalist” Milei won elections last November vowing to reduce the Argentine de cit to zero.
To that end, he has instituted an austerity program that has seen the government slash subsidies for transport, fuel and energy, even as wage-earners lost a
fth of their purchasing power.
Thousands of public servants have lost their jobs.
The CGT union, part of Thursday’s strike call, accuses Mr. Milei of imposing “a brutal adjustment suffered especially by the lower-income sectors, the wage-earning middle class and pensioners”.
Just weeks after taking oce in December, Mr. Milei faced his rst general strike.
Recent polls showed Mr. Milei’s popularity hovering between 45% and 50%, just short of his 56% of votes in his election win — a surprisingly high vote of con dence given the widespread unpopularity of his cost-saving measures.