Teachers from seven provinces and Buenos Aires City will strike and march to demand fair wages and protest President Javier Milei’s decision to cut a national fund that contributes to teachers’ salaries.

The strike was called on Thursday by the Confederation of Argentine Education Workers (CTERA by its Spanish initials), which gathers unions from around the country.

It will affect the eight districts where the school year is set to begin on Monday: Buenos Aires City, Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Formosa, Mendoza, San Luis and Santa Fe. Classes in Jujuy and Salta were also scheduled to start on Monday, but the governors postponed it because of uncertainty over the payment of national education funds.

Before the strike was announced, the government said it would be opening wage negotiations on Tuesday, one day after the start of the school year in those districts.

Public school teacher salaries are funded by the provinces, but the national government contributes around 10% via a fund known as the “teachers’ incentive.” 

This year, Milei is refusing to deposit the money in the Teachers’ Incentive National Fund (FONID, in Spanish), saying the government does not plan to renew the fund. The previous government renewed it for two years in January 2022.

CTERA said in a press release Thursday that they would attend a meeting on Tuesday, asking the government to pay the FONID and a compensation fund for poorer provinces that was also not paid. The union confederation had previously requested the government call for wage negotiations before classes started.

Argentina’s General Confederation of Labor (CGT by its Spanish initials) confirmed that the four teaching unions under its purview would wait for the outcome of Tuesday’s wage negotiations before deciding whether to strike. Teachers who are members of those unions will be working normally this week.

Teacher salaries are not the only source of conflict between the national and provincial governments. In recent days, all governors except Tucumán’s Osvaldo Jaldo have lashed out against Milei for refusing to transfer funding to provinces, backing Chubut governor Ignacio Torres, who warned that he would stop sending oil and gas to the rest of the country until his province receives its share of federal taxes.

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In Argentina, national negotiations set the minimum wage for teachers countrywide. This is then used to set provincial wages. 

“Teachers will not only not be earning more, they will be earning less,” CTERA leader Sonia Alesso told C5N news channel on Thursday, emphasizing that they won’t receive the FONID, the compensation funds, or even overtime pay. The provinces paid those items in January, but many have already confirmed they don’t have enough resources to keep paying them.

Last week, Alesso told the Herald the Milei administration also failed to pay educational funds used to build schools, help public school cafeterias where pupils have free lunches, and support programs such as Conectar Igualdad (which gives pupils free laptops).

In Buenos Aires City, Mayor Jorge Macri warned that striking teachers would have their pay docked.

In 2023, teacher pay rose by 177%, while inflation was 211%. Milei took office on December 10. In December, prices went up by 25.5% — the highest monthly inflation in over 30 years — and in January by 20.6%.

Currently, the average monthly teacher’s salary nationwide is $350,000, while the poverty line for a couple with two children was almost AR$600,000 in January, according to the latest report by Argentina’s INDEC statistics bureau.

With information from Télam