Update, 10.14 p.m. October 30, 2024

The bus strike scheduled for Thursday has been called off after the union reached a pay deal in last-minute talks on Wednesday. That means buses will now be operating normally.

The Automobile and Tram Union (UTA, by its Spanish acronym) announced on Monday that buses will strike after weeks of uncertainty. However, bus services will not be halted alongside the combined protest by trains, subways, planes, and ships on October 30. Instead, the UTA is holding its own strike the next day, Thursday, October 31.

The union is currently negotiating a pay rise. The government required the parties to halt strikes and return to the negotiating table — a process known as mandatory conciliation — but this period ended on October 28. 

“We have been seeking just compensation for months without receiving a single salary offer and the mandatory conciliation deadline is today. The state has assigned salary increases for bus companies in August, September, and October of AR$17.8 million, and the workers have not seen this reflected in their salaries at all,” read a communiqué signed by UTA head Roberto Carlos Fernández, with some words in bold and underlined. 

According to C5N, the government has agreed to a meeting with UTA scheduled for Wednesday at 5 p.m. in a bid to prevent the strike. An official list of which buses would suspend their services has not yet been published.

“We have tried to avoid such a harmful measure to society, in a system which carries out 10 million trips daily, so we have resolved to halt activities for 24 hours,” the communiqué continued. “We hope that both companies and transport authorities at the national, provincial, and city level take responsibility and commit to adjusting salaries to avoid the damage to workers and public transport users.”

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