Unions and Kirchnerist leaders slam Macri austerity measures, repression.

[forest444]

As anger continued to mount yesterday over the sacking of between 12,000 and 15,000 state workers by President Mauricio Macri’s administration, Kirchnerist lawmakers and labor union representatives accused the government of deliberate repression and of trying to implement harsh austerity measures.

“The model of austerity and economic concentration can only be implemented with repression and shielding by the media,” Andrés Larroque, one of the leaders of the Kirchnerist youth group La Cámpora, said yesterday regarding the recent repression by La Plata police of protests convened by sacked state employees. La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires Province, saw some 4,500 state employees sacked by Mayor Julio Garro (a Macri ally), leading to a mass demonstration on Friday to protest the measures which was dispersed by police forces with tear gas and rubber bullets, who injured scores of demonstrators in the process.

The move came just days after high-ranking government figures including Vice President Gabriela Michetti announced the sacking of 2,000 Senate staff and employees and the firing of 600 workers from the recently opened Néstor Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK) in downtown Buenos Aires.

Macri officials have described the downsized employees as “political appointments.” Larroque responded yesterday by calling the government's justification for the sacking of thousands of state employees as “political smoke screen.”

“In the last few days we have lived through madness in Argentina,” Larroque added. “Hopefully the government, both national and provincial, take action on the matter and reflect on these methodologies we thought we had left in the past, because repression against people is something that we though we would never see again in Argentina.”

Meanwhile, union leaders also joined the Kirchneristeopposition in slamming the mass firings of state employees. José Peralta, Secretary General of the CTA labor federation (Argentina's second largest) said the move was a deliberately punitive one taken by Macri’s right-wing coalition against workers.

The state employees were sacked “to discipline the working class in the immediate future, as a strategy to condition the situation ahead of the wage negotiations this year,” Peralta said, adding that the move was taken to allow the Macri administration to move the national discourse away from the key concerns workers faced in the year ahead.

“The government is seeking to change the focus of the discussion away from wages or job insecurity,” he concluded.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/206500/unions-kirchnerite-leaders-blast-%E2%80%98austerity-measures-repression%E2%80%99
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The 600 Néstor Kirchner Cultural Center layoffs represent 85% of its workforce, and would effectively shutter the world's fourth largest cultural center. The center, inaugurated last May, has already hosted 2,300 events visited by 750,000 people.

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/03/442664722/in-argentina-where-culture-is-a-right-a-free-new-arts-center-opens

[Judi Lynn]

1. More power to the real people of Argentina. Hope the next several years will bring unity.

If the younger ones only took the time to learn what the country has already been through, it would help them so much in developing a more reasoned grasp of what they need for their future.

So glad to learn there is already a movement underfoot to take Argentina's government where it needs to go for the sake of the people, not the 1% controlling the wealth, and now the government.

So many state workers cut off from their livelihoods just because of their political associations. Very dirty, isn't it?

Thank you, forest444.