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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Oct. 10, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
From noon on Sept. 26 to 11:59 the next night, Argentina was shut down by a 36-hour general strike. Some 80 percent to 90 percent of the workers went out, shutting down public transportation and industry.
Workers are angry about joblessness, labor reform that will make it far easier to fire them, cuts in benefits and tax increases. So they followed the call by the General Labor Confederation (CGT), Argentina's largest labor union, and walked out in massive numbers.
On Aug. 8 there was a 24-hour general strike, which was successful but not quite as powerful as this one. In mid-September the country went dark as most people turned off their lights and went into the streets banging empty pots.
President Carlos Saul Menem declared the strike a "failure." He told reporters it would have no impact on his economic policies.
Under them, unemployment has risen to 17 percent. The country is in a deep recession.
Menem's policy is based on the recommendations of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Washington-based World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Argentina is a test case in Latin America, where the workers and the labor movement are the strongest. If the imperialist bankers can impose austere living standards on workers there, they reason, it can be done anywhere. The bankers in Washington and New York set their economic policies isolated from the struggle in Argentina-but the 36-hour strike already cost the Argentine bosses $1 billion.
And the workers didn't just sit home during the strike. Tens of thousands of them from all over Argentina gathered in front of Menem's palace on the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, with banners, flags, placards and drums. With fists in the air, they told Menem they'd be back longer and stronger if he keeps up his attacks.
The head of the CGT, Rodolfo Dajer, said "The government is out of touch with the people and we will not forgive it for turning its back on us."
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)