Buenos Aires Herald 
An Argentine court issued a temporary stay order against the government’s decision to declare commercial air transport an essential service, a measure aimed at restricting union’s ability to strike.
Judge Ricardo Hierrezuelo of Labor Court N 42 granted the injuction based on a filing made by the Airline Pilots Association union (APLA, for its Spanish initials). The ruling determined that the restrictions be placed on hold for three months pending a final decision regarding the constitutional standing of the government’s orders.
APLA celebrated the temporary halting of the Milie administration’s measure, saying that they “violated the pilots’ right to protest.” “We will respond to every illegality with greater conviction regarding the reasons of our demands,” they wrote in a post on X.
“With each step that the government has taken to intervene in this conflict, it has repeatedly shown itself to be a part of it, thus confusing its place of a public power with that of an employer.”
The new rules regulating strikes were announced in a pair of decrees published in Argentina’s Official Gazette on September 16. The declaration of commercial air transport as an essential service meant that aviation workers would have to announce strikes at least five days in advance and operate at least half of flights during work stoppages, according to new government regulations.
This was done for legal purposes, meaning unions would be required to meet certain minimum provisions even during industrial disputes.
The government’s decision came after a flurry of union assemblies and strikes in airports across the country that led to the cancellation and rescheduling of hundreds of flights. Pilots and crew members, as well as baggage handlers and other staff took part of the protests over pay, overshadowed by a vehement political debate about whether to privatize national carrier Aerolíneas Argentinas.
In the first version of his flagship Ley Bases bill, President Javier Milei vowed to privatize the company, which then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had nationalized in 2008. However, the national airline was not included in the list of state-owned companies “subject to privatization” in the final version that Congress approved.
This has not halted the government’s willingness to move on with the privatization. Last Thursday, Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced that the administration was in “talks” with private aviation companies discussing the possibility of them stepping in to run the national airline.
He added that the government would move forward with these negotiations if ongoing strikes over pay by pilots, baggage handlers, and other staff persisted.
According to a government official who spoke off the record to the Herald’s sister publication Ambito, negotiations were currently being held with “three or four companies” regarding domestic flights.
