We express our strong support for the general strike called for January 24 in Argentina, in rejection of the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU), the omnibus bill and the protocol limiting social protest, which the Milei government intends to impose.
These measures represent a clear offensive against the working class and the population as a whole. They seek to benefit the big economic groups and the International Monetary Fund, at the cost of attacking the most basic human and labour rights of the Argentine people. The devaluation of the Argentinean peso by 115 per cent has led to galloping inflation and higher prices for transport, food and basic services. This has provoked a brutal reduction in the salaries of workers and pensioners and thousands of layoffs in the public sector.
With these measures, President Milei also intends to arrogate extraordinary powers to himself, bypassing the legislature. He is amending hundreds of existing laws, pushing ahead with theprivatization of public companies, establishing a regulatory framework that strengthens extractivism and the destruction of the commons, and restricting fundamental workers’ rights such as the right to strike, to organize trade unions and to mobilize.
The Argentinian people have taken to the streets, defying the repressive measures preventing mobilizations, showing their indignation and determination to defend the rights won through years of struggle.
To defeat Milei and the IMF plan, the broadest unity must be built in defence of wages, pensions, social plans, freedom of organisation, demonstration and expression, as well as to demand non-payment of the fraudulent and odious public debt. It is essential to strengthen the spaces of organization and deliberation in assemblies in the neighbourhoods and workplaces that allow democratic participation in order togenerate active popular participation in this process.
Argentina today is a laboratory for the international ultra-right, which is closely following the process of the offensive against the working class and the people as a whole.
Let us promote international solidarity in support of the general strike.
Against the decree of necessity and urgency and the Omnibus Law of the government of Milei
Unity, organization and struggle to defeat the adjustment and the reform package.
Internationalist solidarity with the Argentinian people.
Bureau of the Fourth International, Paris 22 January 2024