Argentina’s public-sector workers launch “national day of struggle” against austerity

BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — Workers from the Association of State Workers (ATE) launched a “national day of struggle” on Wednesday to protest austerity measures proposed by President Javier Milei’s administration.
Protesters took to the streets in the country’s main cities, including the capital Buenos Aires, where demonstrators gathered outside National Congress, setting up tents and tables to collect signatures to request that Congress annul the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU).
“In the second half of the year, the levels of conflict are going to increase, unemployment is going to become a societal drama again, and in the lead-up to Christmas, societal peace will be seriously damaged. It will be very difficult to get to December,” said Rodolfo Aguiar, general secretary of the ATE.
Describing Wednesday’s protests as “the stopover prior to the general strike,” the labor leader said the goal was to “get the DNU annulled and declared unconstitutional.”
“We have to deepen the plan of struggle against an economic program that is destroying all of our lives. The program designed by the government does not work and will not work. It is failing,” Aguiar added. ■