Trade union action and social protest during the Menem
Until 1995, Carlos Menem has a great support, mainly from having to control inflation, such support is more pronounced at the district workers. The middle classes in tradition antiperonista maintain an opposing position.
The Liaison Committee, formed by the CTA, the Movement of Argentine Workers and Combative Current Class and develop a series of general strikes and demonstrations to express their opposition to economic policies and reforms of labor flexibility in course.
In 1997, Menem was defeated by the UCR-Alianza Frepaso. In the parliamentary elections of 1997 was a turning point in the relationship of the Menem administration and the entire labor movement. The CGT joined the MTA and the CTA Class and Combative Current (CCC) in 1997 produced in the mobilizations against the economic policies that were radicalizing their goals into action to criticize the president Menem.
In 1997 it was beginning to show the dramatic social consequences of abandonment of the welfare state and the process of privatization led to the closure of refineries, plants and mines, 90 of rail branch lines, the establishment of tolls, etc., Affecting survival of entire towns. On April 12, 1997 hundreds of unemployed ork of the city of Neuqu n Cutral-Co, the vast majority of former oil workers and the building, emerging from the invisibility to form pickets and cut with Route 17. Teresa died in the repression Rodriguez. Shortly after the picket lines reappeared in Salta (Tartagal and Mosconi). While there picketing in the party bonaerense La Matanza. It was then that temporary jobs are the plans under the name “Work.”
Carpa Blanca teacher, 1997
Also in the crucial year 1997, the CTA hosted the “White Tent Teaching” is located opposite the National Congress to demand wage increases and to express their opposition to educational reform promoted by the Menem administration. The “White Tent” will become a center of opposition to call for educational policies of the Menem administration and labor, will be a broad call to opposition parties, human rights movements, student organizations and cultural, etc..
The anti-union and social movements were constant since then. On many occasions, led by employees and provincial public sector workers (employees and workers of the provincial governments, municipalities, education workers, etc..), Often affiliated with unions or sections of public sector local unions, members of the CGT (as UPCN, EMCO) and members of the CTA (ATE, CTERA).
The CTA, which is run mainly to a sector of public employees and teachers, and has a lower insertion between industrial workers and the private tertiary activities, compensate for these weaknesses convened beside the MTA and the CCC, to various organizations representing the small and medium enterprises, professional associations and intellectuals, and others to the FUA Marchas Federal and other forms of structuring social policy. Achievement also be inside one of the pioneers of the movement of unemployed, the Land and Housing Federation (FTV). It also revived the complaint of the 1988 Union Industrial Argentina (UIA) in the ILO, to challenge the law and the pattern of association of unions covered by a union personality.
The presidential election of 1999 marked the breakup of the Liaison Officers. Both the CTA and the MTA were actively involved in supporting the Alliance (UCR, Frepaso, PS, etc) and the candidacy of Fernando de la Rua presented against Peronism, represented by Eduardo Duhalde, the CCC took the side of abstention, the vote blank or zero in the fight for a Argentinazo.
The Alliance won the elections with a center-left, but continued to implement the policies that characterized the Menem government, inspired by the Washington Consensus, with an important role of the International Monetary Fund. The climax of this development was the assumption of Cavallo, the father of the economic transformations of the Menem administration, as minister of Economy of the Alliance in 2001. The economic recession started in late 1998, compounded by the convertibility of the peso to the dollar, anger is aggravating day by day to operate in 2001/2002.
In its first week in government, the Alliance faced a protest by state workers who cut estrategico Corrientes Bridge Resistance – Current, using Gendarmeria to evict the violent repression through which caused two deaths.
On March 16, 2000, is the institutional division of the CGT in two pipelines, which formalizes the separation of the MTA.
