The General Confederation of Labor’s (CGT) Joint Secretary General Héctor Daer, called for reducing the 48-hour working week in an event today for International Workers Day in Buenos Aires City.

“The 48-hour working week is anachronistic because worker productivity has grown exponentially, so we have to discuss and modify it,” he said, in the Defensores de Belgrano football club.

Currently, Argentina’s law allows a maximum of eight daily work hours six days a week or 48 hours a week total. Left-wing coalition Frente de Izquierda has proposed to reduce it to six hours a day or 30 hours a week.

The CGT’s speech comes five days after Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s speech in La Plata, where she said that the country is experiencing a new phenomenon, the existence of “registered workers under the poverty line.”

On his side, the CGT’s press secretary, Jorge Sola, spoke against the “labor reform” pushed by right-wing opposition parties, and said the workers “do not need it.” The proposed reform typically consists of repealing laws that protect workers against business owners. Today, Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and presidential hopeful spoke about those laws derogatorily, as he said he aims to end the “labor lawsuit industry.”

Sola also said the CGT favors a “big political, economic and social agreement.”

Economy Ministry Sergio Massa didn’t go to the event, because he traveled to Brazil, but sent a message in which he expressed his “commitment to work together in the stabilization of the economy and the recovery of wages.”

“Warm regards, with the conviction of believing in only one kind of man,” he said. “Those who work.”

The CGT weighs in on the economic situation

Daer also lambasted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and, without naming them, right-wing former President Mauricio Macri and far-right libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei. 

“The IMF cannot continue to support an unattainable goal,” Daer said, referring to the Argentina-IMF program targets, which involve cutting on welfare. 

“Enough of those irresponsible people who say that we must ‘dynamite everything’ and those who say that we must ‘dynamite a little,’” he said, in reference to Macri and Milei’s increasingly radical statements, who have incurred in anti-union rhetoric.

“Enough of the irresponsible people who say that we must dollarize,” he added, in reference of Milei’s flagship proposal of abolishing the national currency and replacing it with the US dollar.

Daer also spoke about this year’s elections, as he called on workers “to support the triumph of Peronism and to raise awareness so that nobody votes for those who threaten their interests.” Trade unions have traditionally aligned themselves with Peronist governments. Yesterday, Daer said in an interview that Massa is his preferred candidate for this year’s presidential elections.

“We shall not give the right wing even a little bit of advantage, which is trying to take away all rights,” he said.

The labor leader mentioned the current “inflation process,” which he said was a “macroeconomic” issue, but he also blamed businessmen for it. “It’s also a product of opportunists that take advantage of the situation, and mark up prices,” he said.

Daer also spoke about last week’s run against the peso, and said it had “political, speculative, and financial connotations.” 

“They want to get rich at the expense of the people,” he said.

Herald / Télam