Argentine President Javier Milei has resumed his agenda to reduce the state to a minimum after the Christmas recess. In his third week in office, the ultra-liberal president has signed a decree that cancels the contracts of state workers who entered in the last year. The government estimates that "more than 5,000" people are affected, while other sources, such as the Association of State Workers (ATE), estimate that the figure exceeds 7,000. The number could grow, as the government will also review the contracts of public sector workers employed before January 90, 1, in the next 2023 days, and unions are on alert.
The decree published on Tuesday in the Official Gazette establishes that the contracts of state workers signed as of January 1, 2023 will not be renewed. The measure provides for some exceptions: for example, workers who are part of "quotas regulated by law or other types of special protections" are exempt, such as people with disabilities, or personnel who are considered "indispensable" to a jurisdiction. The text also anticipates that the rest of the contracts will be subjected to "an exhaustive survey" in the next 90 days.
In his first speech as president, Milei had already anticipated that the adjustment promised by his government will be paid for by the state and not by the private sector. The cut began with the Cabinet of Ministers, when the far-right limited the number of portfolios to nine, half of those in the previous administration. The Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, announced as part of the first economic measures the reduction of the state workforce. The decree published on Tuesday is a further step in the government's roadmap and aims to "achieve a better functioning of the public administration".
The Argentine public sector has a total of almost 3.5 million salaried employees, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Labour, of which a tenth belong to the national administration. The latter's personnel expenditure represents 2.2% of GDP, according to a report by the consulting firm Ieral - Mediterranean Foundation, a percentage that has fallen since 2015, when it was 3.3% of GDP. According to this analysis, the share of public employment in the budget "is close to the Scandinavian countries and at the antipodes of Japan and Germany".
The Association of State Workers (ATE) has described the decree as an "aggression" against these workers and has considered in a statement that public employees "in all cases perform tasks that are indispensable". "Let no one expect us to accept a single dismissal," warned Rodolfo Aguiar, general secretary of the Association of State Workers (ATE), in a statement released by the organization, which warned that the union intends to "deepen" its "plan of struggle."
The demand will be heard this Wednesday in a call made by the country's trade union federations to also demand that the decree signed by Milei a week ago with 300 reforms to scrap the Argentine State be stopped. Last Wednesday, the president presented another decree of necessity and urgency that repeals laws, eliminates dozens of state regulations, enables the privatization of public companies such as the oil company YPF and opens the door to operations in dollars. It also kicks off the flexibility of the labor market and the health system.
The demands of the workers, who consider that Milei's adjustment falls on the most vulnerable sectors of the population, will be made in a climate of tension marked by a new protocol against street blockades. The plan was announced by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich almost simultaneously with the economic measures and first came into practice on December 20, when tens of thousands of people came out to protest surrounded by heavy security.
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