Argentina: Top union declares general strike

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s largest labour union, the CGT, has declared its first general strike under President Mauricio Macri to protest the conservative leader’s economic policies, a spokesman said Friday. The decision comes after months of criticising a rightward policy shift under Macri, who took office in December vowing to reignite growth in Latin America’s third-largest economy with free-market reforms. “The economy still isn’t taking off, and consumption has been falling for seven months now,” Schmid told a news conference. Argentine unions, which are broadly allied with the opposition, are calling for new salary negotiations in the face of inflation expected to hit 43% this year. Macri came to power with a flurry of reforms, slashing import and export taxes, announcing subsidy cuts for electricity and natural gas, and ending currency controls — which triggered a sharp devaluation of the peso and fuelled inflation. But the promised growth has yet to arrive.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2016.

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