September 11, 2024
Pensioners fight police as Congress capitulates to Milei on pension reform, photo:Federico López Claro
On Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies ratified President Javier Milei’s veto of the retirement mobility law that improve the retirement pensions of passive workers (by 8.1%), preventing the amount received from being less than the Basic Basket of Benefits. The session in Congress took place after a meeting between legislators of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and Government officials, in which they negotiated their support to the adjustment.
With 153 votes in favor, 87 against and eight abstentions, the veto was approved with the complicity of deputies of the UCR, the party that promoted this measure, while two other legislators of this force absented themselves from the vote.
The five legislators of the UCR met with Milei and changed their vote, so the veto to the reform that provides for an increase in the pension assets and a new mobility formula was imposed.
Meanwhile, the repression of the Gendarmerie, the Federal Police and the Argentine Naval Prefecture (PNA), took place against the demonstrators who were peacefully in front of the Legislative Palace to reject the endorsement of the Chamber of Deputies to the presidential veto.
According to the platform Página 12, a retiree alleged that they were “on the sidewalk and the same policemen started to push us to the middle of the street. They wanted to keep pushing us further in and I wanted to get out, to return to the sidewalk, and there from behind they tear gassed me in the face from a few centimeters away”. The current spokesperson for the assemblies of La Poderosa, Negra Albornoz, said that “it is an enormous indignation that they mistreat the elderly. Today they are fighting for miserable pensions and this Congress turns its back on them”.
While the Lower House did not get the two thirds needed to pass the bill, the Buenos Aires press union mobilized to repudiate the repression against the press together with the Association of Graphic Reporters of the Argentine Republic and to defend the pensions together with the union, social and human rights movement.
With the slogan “Unity in the streets for rights”, the demonstrators also demanded decent salaries for the workers, after the refusal of the initiative of the pension reform which stipulated a monthly updating formula for pensions that combined the inflation index and the average variation of the registered salaries, plus an extraordinary adjustment of 8.1 percent to the April salaries to compensate the monthly inflation of 20.6 percent in January.
The pension mobility bill was approved by the Senate on August 22 with 61 votes in favor, while Javier Milei vetoed the bill in its entirety on September 2, under the assumption that the measure was “manifestly in violation of the legal framework in force”.
The pensioners were asking for an 8.1 percent increase in pensions for Argentina’s six million retirees, according to the Social Security Statistical Bulletin, of which 64.4 percent receive the minimum benefit which is at around 52% of the poverty level.
Repression in the Congress after the veto of the increase for retirees.
A few minutes after the vote, a portion of the thousands of demonstrators who arrived at the Plaza de los Dos Congresses advanced over the fences of the security operation set up by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, in protest against the agreement reached by Milei and the sold out member of congress. Gendarmerie, Argentine Federal Police and Argentine Naval Prefecture began to repress the retirees and other demonstrators.
A few demonstrators managed to arrive to repudiate the vote at the entrance door of the Legislative Power on Rivadavia Street, without opposition from the first cordon of the Federal Police. But a few seconds later, the repression began to be carried out by the Gendarmerie, which was stationed on Riobamba Street, and advanced to the corner of Rivadavia and Entre Ríos in a siege with the Federal Police.
TV reportage showed people and press workers being injured by police using sticks and tear gas. Among the injuries, was a woman with rubber bullet pellets and a 10 year old girl affected by the gas.
“As if the retirement is not enough. We can’t even afford to eat, Melei is a wretch,” one pensioner, and compared him to Carlos Menem, remembering the privatization period he lived through as a railroad worker.
Minutes before the repression, the Chamber of Deputies ratified the veto of President Javier Milei to deny an 8.1 percent increase to retirees when the two thirds necessary to revert the presidential decision were not reached.
The mobilization that gathered at the Plaza de los Dos Congresos was attended by trade union and social organizations that called for a “massive act” to show the Government that “retirees are not alone”. They did so through a joint document, with strong criticism of Javier Milei and his decision to veto the mobility law. The Corriente Federal de Trabajadores, the Frente Sindical para el Modelo Nacional, the UTEP, the Mesa de Organismos de Derechos Humanos and both CTA were among the signatory organizations.
“In no way can we allow the President to continue transferring the wealth generated by our people and our nation to benefit the powerful economic groups that today surround him”, they maintained and added: ‘You have to have a lot of hatred towards our people, our workers and our retirees to carry out so much persecution and government repression’.