Argentina: Strike and march in Congress. Huge show of strength, with the CGT without talking about continuity
The enormous mobilization to Congress has just ended, starring thousands and thousands of workers and popular sectors. That they met there to confront the mega DNU and the Milei Omnibus Law and the Bullrich protocol. As all the images and videos could show, The crowd not only filled the Plaza and the parallel streets Rivadavia and Irigoyen, but thousands more occupied the entire Avenida de Mayo until the 9 of July without being able to enter the Plaza because it was already full. The enormous number of people mobilized, ended up taking to the streets, those same streets that the repressive Bullrich and her unconstitutional protocol want to prohibit us from using. Today was abad day for that minister unpresentable. Not only because of the crowd mobilized to Congress, but because at the same time very important mobilizations were also developed throughout the country in each province.
As we said, Although the call for the mobilization of Congress was from the CGT, the samewas taken and used as a fighting action by different and important sectors; all cultural organizations, who today is one of those mobilized and organized against the government, the columns of neighborhood assemblies of CABA, Greater Buenos Aires and La Plata, all social and picketing organizations, different student centers, among other mobilized sectors.
To this we must add thestrong presence of the left, among them a very important column ofMST in the FIT Unit and the Teresa Lives Movement, that together formeda large multi-sector and independent column with strong prominence and a huge banner that demanded a fight plan until the DNU and the Omnibus Law fall. Column that gained an important place in Congress Square early on.
Everything led to the fact that although the CGT was the central convener and obviously there was the presence of many unions, The reality was that the social movements and the entire political and union left, They occupied an important part of the Plaza. Thus demonstrating two facts at the same time; On the one hand, the important weight of social organizations and the left. Y, for another, that the unions led by the CGT, although they carried out the strike and an important mobilization, even with some guilds that did not enter the plaza, The truth is that the union center could have even mobilized much more than they did.. As always, the union bureaucracy, even when it calls for an important action like today's, diminishes the strength of the organized labor movement, to avoid overflows or criticism of the union leadership itself.
Equally, what isevident as a conclusion to today's day, first, mobilization and also the hours of strike, is that It was a very important action of struggle that strengthens the fight of the labor movement and all the popular sectors in struggle.That there have been thousands and thousands of us in Congress and throughout the country is a blow to the Milei government and its entire project., and shows the enormous strength that the working class has when it goes out to fight. Force that could express itself much stronger if it had a combative and democratic leadership, according to the needs of the great fight that lies ahead.
And the CGT's fighting plan?
Within the framework ofa day of strike and mobilization that invigorates the entire movement fighting against Milei's plan of adjustment and repression, evidently the speeches of the CGT leadership were not even close to, up to what is needed. Because we are at a time where the government is having difficulties facing the session and dealing with the Omnibus Law and it was the most appropriate time to define concrete measures of a fight plan..
The central event began after 2:00 p.m. with the reading of a document agreed upon and signed by the CGT, the two CTA's, UTEP and different organizations related to these sectors, where general complaints were made to the DNU and the Omnibus Law. Beyond correct denunciations and a logical call to defend all workers' conquests, The document was focused on demands to the deputies for the next session, which in principle would be next week.. Butdid not contain any proposal for continuity of struggle to the enormous demonstration of force carried out today.
Someone might think that this continuity would occur in the subsequent speeches ofMoyano YDaer. Not at all.Neither speaker made a single mention of new combat measures, to phased plans, to calls for new strikes or marches. Nothing at all. Having an enormous working and popular force before your eyes, They opted for general speeches, some correct complaints, but no mention of how to follow the fight plan. Daer said only in passing “we will continue the fight”. Butas is known, the fights only continue in truth, with force measures that they are not isolated but part of a serious fight plan.
In fact, There was a very obvious first call that the CGT could have made and did not make: call for mobilization on the day the Omnibus Law is discussed (what will be next Tuesday) to press hard that day with thousands in the street. The central speeches did not call for this task or any other. Which confirms what we have been saying.; The enormous fight that is needed against Milei cannot be left in the hands of the old bureaucracy of the CGT. We have to continue demanding that they call for new measures because we need the entire organized labor movement in the streets. But we have to take this fight into our own hands., as different sectors are already doing.
Our tasks
Beyond the debates we have with the CGT leadership, It is evident that today's day drives the struggle and the desire of thousands and thousands to strengthen the fight against the government. We have to start from that very positive fact, to advance in new tasks and fighting actions.
On the one hand, We have to return to each workplace to take stock of this mobilization and this half-day strike, which were very important.. Claim it anddemand in each union calls for meetings of delegates and grassroots assemblies to debate and decide how to continue the fight. And where the union leaders do not want to do it, we have toorganize all activism to the sectors of workers who do want to do it, to jointly evaluate and discuss what measures can be carried out. Coordinating with other working sectors in struggle, bringing support and solidarity to those who are in the process of fighting against layoffs, privatizations or salaries.
Bothin each neighborhood we have to call assemblies and debate in depth with all of our colleagues to prepare for the coming fight for food and increases in social assistance..
In the neighborhood assemblies that were also protagonists today, we have to take advantage of this momentum to strengthen them, call on more neighbors and youth to participate, have good meetings the next few days to balance everything. Yprepare new and bigger casseroles that make the force of all our demands felt.
In the culture sector, who today participated with great force and massiveness, We have to go out to guarantee the next measures already resolved in the last assembly such as the festivals, the carnival, the federal cultural march and the national meeting.
And as United for Culture and other sectors already resolved, We have a very important first action ahead of us: mobilize strongly and surround Congress next Tuesday when the Omnibus Law is discussed. This debate comes with complicit blocs working in favor of the government, but at the same time with many contradictions and crises, The last word has not been said on how this debate will end.. mobilization, huge like today, and also what we can do that day, They help put pressure so that they do not advance. We have to be strong there.
And from the anti-capitalist and socialist left and theFIT Unit, we have the political responsibility tostrengthen the multisectoral and independent space, that even with strong previous debates and differences, ended up achieving a good unitary column and was the protagonist. We must strengthen andgive continuity to this coordination of the political left, class unionism, human rights organizations, culture, assemblies and social movements and picketers. There is no fight that can be won without uniting all this political and social force.. On the one hand, essential, to push the fights much deeper that come. And at the political level to insist on the need tostrengthen a new political alternative from and alongside the left.
Originally published in journalismdeizquierda.com
