Buenos Aires Herald 
Armed with pots, pans, and sticks to bang them with, Argentines took to the streets on Wednesday night in a series of fresh protests against President Javier Milei’s economic deregulation measures, following calls on social media to resume the spontaneous demonstrations that began on December 20.
The protests — known in Spanish as cacerolazos for the kitchenware of choice among demonstrators — took place in Buenos Aires and other cities around the country, rejecting the labor reforms, mass privatization of state companies, and other regulations in Milei’s mega-decree and omnibus bill.
People met at major crossroads all over Buenos Aires, including Medrano and Corrientes in Almagro neighborhood and Acoyte and Rivadavia in Caballito. Some gathered in front of Congress and even outside the presidential residence in Olivos, just outside the capital. Milei has been living in the Libertador hotel in downtown Buenos Aires since before he was elected president, and has not moved to Olivos yet.
There were also cacerolazos in La Plata (the capital of Buenos Aires Province), Posadas (Misiones) and Santiago del Estero.
Videos shared online show protesters standing on the sidewalks, waiting for the stoplights to turn red before protesting in front of the stopped cars. This is a response to Security Minister Patricia Bullrich’s anti-protest protocol, which bans roadblocks.
Buenos Aires city police showed up to supervise some of the protests, videos show.
The new protests came the day a labor court blocked the labor reforms included in Milei’s December 21 decree, following a request by trade union confederation the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, by its Spanish initials) to declare the labor segment of the document unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, the National Labor Appeals Chamber established a temporary stay against the labor chapter of the decree. Milei used a kind of presidential decree known as a “decree of necessity and urgency,” intended for use only in circumstances that are so urgent that there is no time for them to pass through Congress. The government appealed the decision, and now the Administrative Litigation court will have to make a final decision on the matter.
If the labor section of the DNU goes through, it would limit the right to strike and organize union gatherings, allow the working day to last up to 12 hours, increase the probation period for new hires from three to eight months, and eliminate penalties for companies that fail to register their workers.
The stay announced Wednesday is just one part of the decree — the rest of the 366 articles in it came into effect on December 29. Since Milei issued it, there have been several injunctions and lawsuits requesting it be declared unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the division of powers and that these reforms are not urgent enough to be passed via decree.
The night Milei announced the decree, on December 20, massive spontaneous cacerolazos broke out all over the country and continued for two more days.
There were further protests after Milei presented a sweeping bill known as the “omnibus bill” in Congress last week. If approved, the 351-page legislative proposal would give Milei extraordinary legislative powers for two years and modify or create hundreds of laws. Presidents in Argentina are not allowed to legislate.
— with information from Télam.
