Buenos Aires Herald 
The Human Capital Ministry will grant university professors and staff a 6.8% salary raise via decree. Unions have rejected the proposal, which they point out falls far below inflation.
The decision was announced after the parties failed to reach a pay agreement on Monday, just two days before Congress is set to debate President Javier Milei’s veto of a bill approving university funding.
“Despite the refusal of unions, [the government] will grant the largest accumulated salary raise this month within the state structure, in line with our commitment to prioritize salaries over political disputes,” read a Human Capital Ministry statement.
Unions said talks with the government stalled because the state’s pay offer fell far short of compensating for the purchasing power lost since the change of government in December. The Argentine Federation of National University Workers union (FATUN, by its Spanish initials) was asking for a raise of at least 63.5%, the percentage they say has been lost since Milei took office. Together with the University Professors Federation (FEDUN), they called on Congress to strike down Milei’s veto.
Congress gets ready to vote
The Lower House will session on Wednesday to debate President Javier Milei’s veto on a bill that granted a funding increase for public universities. The president went through with the measure just hours after a massive nationwide march calling for better wages.
In mid-September, Argentina’s Senate passed legislation securing all university personnel budget increases every two months and monthly pay rises for university personnel indexed to inflation. Less than 24 hours later, Milei said he would block it, but waited until after the second university march of the year to fulfill his promise.
Congress can reject a presidential veto only if two-thirds of lawmakers from both the Lower and Upper House vote to overturn it. If those conditions are not met, the veto will remain in place. This will be the second time Congress will gather to debate a presidential veto during the Milei administration.
The first time, the government secured a win when the Lower House voted to uphold a presidential veto overturning a pension increase that had been approved by both chambers. The jury is still out on what could happen this time.
If all deputies attend the session, then the government will need 86 votes to uphold the veto. In the August 15 session, the university funding bill was approved 143 to 77. One deputy abstained, and 35 were absent.
The opposition has been optimistic that they will be able to overturn the decision. However, former president and PRO party leader Mauricio Macri made a statement backing the veto. If all of PRO and LLA’s deputies attend the debate and vote to uphold the veto, the government will be very close to upholding it. The remaining votes could come from the center-right UCR party, some of whose deputies voted with the government in the last veto, or smaller provincial parties.
In a post on X, Macri said that the defense of “public, free, and democratic universities requires putting an end to the political use of university resources.” He added that the University of Buenos Aires faces a “transparency crisis” and accused them of not presenting a single invoice since 2015.
Last week, a PRO lawmaker told the Herald their position has not been defined yet, and a LLA source added that “it all depended on PRO.”
