Working class action in Argentina

Editorial - The working class with the piqueteros

NESTOR PITROLA



Federal Week ended with a massive march of more than 30,000 compañeros
in Buenos Aires. The news was, once again, the convergence of the
piqueteros with massive work stoppages, roadblocks, pickets and
mobilizations of public employees, teachers and municipal employees. The piqueteros
movement expressed a unity it has not had since 2001, because in this
Federal Week the CCC and the MTD Aníbal Verón joined in.


Worker piquetero unity spread all over the country.

In some provinces the unity of the trade unions with the piqueteros
movement is seen as key to the overthrow of the respective governments.


In Tucumán there were 20 roadblocks, and massive rallies are in the
works for June 23 and for an "all out march" with the UDT and Atep
(teachers), ATE, Soem and other unions, together with student centers. The 50
pesos offered by Alperovich have been rejected by all the unions except
Public Health, whose rank-and-file repudiated the deal. The piqueteros
movement mobilizes against the cuts in social welfare and against the
favoritism of the governor. The Polo Obrero has raised, in the joint
union-piqueteros plenaries, the constitution of a single command organism.

In Salta, the "federal" march, with some 3,000 brothers and sisters,
was half piquetero and half public workers, bringing together the CCC,
the Polo, and ATE (public employees union). A teachers self-convened
front swept all of the union into a general strike, in which the court
workers (who have been on strike for two months) also participated. In the
provincial Legislature a bill has been presented for a 720 pesos
(basket of basic family goods and services) minimum wage, drawn up, in part,
by the CTA and presented by the deputies of the Partido Obrero.

In Chaco, after the historic roadblock on the bridge May 27 by the
Bloque Piquetero, with the Polo Obrero at the head, during Federal Week we
joined up with the UPCP strikes and practically all the trade unions
for an amazing march of more than 5,000 people. Aurelio Díaz was the
orator in the massive rallies attended by public employees. A general
workers and piqueteros general assembly has been proposed, as a result of
the meetings taking place between the piqueteros organizations and the
CGT.

The phenomenon of worker-piquetero unity found its expression all over
the country. In Rosario, at a massive rally with more than 2,000
people, on a speakers platform together with ATE and the new leadership of
Amsafe Rosario and San Lorenzo. Again in Cordoba, with Highway
construction, university instructors and the Junin Clinic, in a mobilization
where the piqueteros movement came out with its greatest mass attendance
(3,000 people acording to La Voz del Interior of 19 June). From it we
denounced the sell out of the struggle for the 250 peso basic wage, by the
trade union bureaucracy, who made a deal for a non-contract 150 pesos.

In San Pedro, Jujuy, a town uprising of 4,000 people, in unity with the
municipal workers and the powerful local piqueteros movement,
accompanied by most of the people, defeated an anti-piquetero ordenance,
prohibiting pickets, roadblocks, the occupation of the town hall and the
burning of "contaminating" rubber tires. Its repeal in the Deliberating
Council itself, which had passed it a week earlier, opened up a political
crisis and the possible fall of the mayor. Something similar occurred
with the Code of Conduct in the City of Buenos Aires, when it failed to
come up for a vote for the second time, in the midst of a mobilization
of piqueteros, popular assemblies and other organizations.

The piqueteros movement was, during Federal Week, an amalgam of the
innumerable workers struggles that dot the country, and the bridge towards
an overall solution, this by means of demands confronting the policies
of the government and through the presence of regional trade unions,
branches, self-convened fronts and even new leaderships, such as those of
Amsafe Rosario and San Lorenzo, in contrast with the absence of the
central trade union confederations, once again revealing the historic
projection of the piqueteros movement.

The polemic unleashed by the government and the communications media
over the occupation of some McDonald's branches by the Mijd attempted to
hide the reports of the enormous mobilization taking place during
Federal Week.

The piqueteros movement emerges strengthened from Federal Week, forcing
attention to be paid to their demands: the six-hour workday; annulment
of the labor flexibilization laws, confrontation against the explosion
of the unemployment rate, now reaching 19.5; an increase of 350 pesos
in the plans and for their universalization. Also, for state ownership
once again of the privatised companies under workers administration and
the annulment of the utility rate hikes.

Federal Week put the working class on the national political stage in
unison with the piqueteros movement.

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