Argentinian working class strike back at Milei’s labour reform

The Argentinian capitalist class, weighed down by high debts and low investment, is turning to the only weapon it has left: counter-reforms that lengthen the working day, make work more precarious, and attack the right to strike. Not taking this lying down, over one million protested across Argentina, fighting armed police in the streets.

Several hundred were wounded and 71 arrested in last week’s protests. Hundreds of thousands descended on the Senate in Buenos Aires, where the government had holed themselves up in a fortress, hiding what they were discussing and voting upon. At around 1:00am, after a 13-hour session, the bill was passed in a 42-30 vote, with Javier Milei's coalition of La Libertad Avanza, PRO, and Unión Cívica Radical voting in favour. Only the Peronist bloc, Unión por la Patria, voted against. 

If the reform is passed by the Chamber of Deputies, it would be one of the gravest clawbacks of hard-fought victories in a generation. This is on top of other counter-reforms made by Milei's La Libertad Avanza on education, healthcare, and the public sector. Milei has called his reform a “turning point in Argentine labour history,” and has repeatedly said current labour laws “prevented, hampered and stopped economic growth.”

Some of the reforms which will do away with the pesky rights “hampering” growth include:

• Extending the standard workday from 8 to 12 hours. Any overtime above 12 hours can be paid in banked time-off rather than extra pay.
• Massive restrictions on the right to strike, legislating 50-75 percent minimum staffing levels in nearly all key workplaces.
• Reductions on collective bargaining from the industrial level down to the workplace.
• Introducing ‘dynamic wages’ based on ‘productivity’, (!) a subjective measure to be used to punish and reward individual workers
• Increasing of the workplace probation period from three months to six, with up to a year for small businesses
• New criteria for firing with "cause" includes participating in workplace blockades
• Reduction of sick pay

This is what capitalism turns to when it has run into a blind alley. Argentina is hanging by a thread, only staving off an immediate default and collapse with what bourgeois analysts are calling a ‘Houdini-like’ escape of massive austerity and a $20 billion American currency swap.

It is the IMF’s largest debtor, with $450 billion in total government debt and nearly empty reserves. Inflation is one of the highest in the world, reaching 300 percent in 2024 as money is printed to cover deficits, among other causes.

Defaulting on its debt would have catastrophic consequences. Inflation would only increase as investors flee and the value of the peso plummets. A run on the banks, as was seen in the 2001 Corralito, would be likely, and a recession would set off a death spiral for Argentinian capitalism.

The situation is further complicated as Argentina is a battleground in the scramble for American control over Latin America as part of Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’. Trump’s multi-billion bailout was given with the purpose of keeping Chinese investment out of its lithium mines, and in order to get Argentina to scrap its $18 billion currency swap line with the People’s Bank of China. Even so, Milei recommitted to expanding trade with China at the 2026 World Economic Forum, noting that Argentina "cannot operate without China."

The cost of doing business

The fallout of this economic disaster is hard to fathom, as the crisis is already dire.

One man protesting against the police last week was in tears as he said, “My money doesn’t get me anything. I buy two kilos of meat, two kilos of bread, and my money is gone. Two kilos of meat and two kilos of bread, that’s it.”

“Whatever Milei says, it’s the voice of the corporations that are behind him,” another man added in the same clip.

Another woman, yelling at the police in defiance, said, “we are hungry, we are out of solutions. And now you’re here, beating up old people, and young people too… we’re going to do the same to you. The same that you do to the people, we’re going to do to you.”

This is a picture of countries dominated by the IMF and imperialism around the world. The working class is being sacrificed as the country struggles to pay even the interest on its debt.

Massive mobilisations are common against Milei, yet the government still stands. The CGT, Argentina’s largest union, has dragged its feet, doing little to stop the proposed reform. This is likely because they have been holding secret negotiations with the state to remove opt-in union dues from the reform, which would likely bankrupt them.

The pressure from below has been enormous and unmistakeable, yet the CGT has only called for a 24-hour general strike when the lower house begins its debate on the bill, which is at the end of February. This is a good step, but taken too late. It also, in classic CGT fashion, involves no mobilizations, and workers are simply told to sit at home peacefully. With a majority in the chamber in coalition with Milei, the passing of the law is a certainty unless the government is toppled or is forced to back down. Let’s not forget a similar labour counter-reform by Mauricio Macri’s PRO party was defeated in 2017 only through mass mobilisations in the streets and strikes.

The government they deserve?

A common response from the government to the protests is: ‘we have a majority, we have a mandate.’ After all, the election just a few months ago in October 2025 gave Milei a majority. One comment on social media expresses a common sentiment: “Argentinians never learn. Seriously, did they really believe that a fascist moron was going to fix that country? Enjoy what you voted for.”

But does this tell the whole story?

The “triumph” of Milei’s LLA hides a voter turnout of just 67 percent (down from 77 percent just two years ago). 12 million people did not vote in the last elections. This is the largest rate of abstention recorded since the return of bourgeois democracy. More abstained than voted for any single party.

In one poll, 70 percent of respondents said they are very concerned about unemployment and the job market, which these reforms will only worsen . What this really shows is a complete failure of the status-quo Peronist opposition to harness people’s anger. In fact, they’d likely be doing the same thing. In 2000, the Peronist-dominated congress tried to pass reactionary labour counter-reforms with many of the same points as today's.

These labour reforms will solve nothing fundamental for the capitalist class in the long-run. The crisis of capitalism can only be temporarily ameliorated, not done away with. Brazil, China, and the US, Argentina’s main importers, are suffering from overproduction and cannot absorb all of Argentina’s commodities, all while debt payments keep growing.

The failures of Peronism show the same pattern which has plagued all reformist governments in Latin America: if you don’t do away with capitalism, you have to play by its rules.

To solve the crisis, the Argentinian working class must seize power and proceed to nationalise industry, nullify the country’s debt, and use the benefits of the economy to fulfil the needs of the population. But the power of the working class has not found an outlet that would channel it in the direction of realising that programme. Our comrades in Argentina have participated in the mobilisations and are trying to build this revolutionary alternative. This system will not overthrow itself, and can only offer austerity, repression, and misery.