In the midst of growing union concern over the wave of layoffs in the national public administration, the government of Javier Milei defined this Monday
an increase of 8% for the March salaries
of national public agents, below the
increase limit of 14 % imposed by the Minister of Economy, Luis Caput
, for the joint ventures closed this month and which has already caused
the delay in the approval by the labor authorities of the salary agreements
in the formal private sector.
The increase, made official during a meeting between Executive officials and leaders of the unions that bring together the personnel of the national State,
was accepted by the representation of UPCN
, while the leadership of
ATE, the other union of the activity, rejected the increase and ratified the day of protest this Tuesday and the 48-hour strike
planned for Tuesday and Wednesday due to the announcement of layoffs at SENASA, a forceful measure that will affect exports from the agro-industrial sector in the run-up to the extra long weekend.
The 8% increase for the March salaries of state employees is the third increase defined for the sector by the Milei administration.
In mid-February, an improvement of 12% had been established for that month (also rejected by the ATE leadership), while in January the increase set was 16%.
Because these are two cumulative sections, the increase totaled 29% in the first two months of the year, against an accumulated inflation in the same period of 36.6%, marking
a salary loss of almost 8 points
.
This situation of deterioration in the income of agents in the national public sector threatens to deepen this month if, as private estimates anticipate, the CPI measurement reported by Indec is above the 8% salary increase set this Monday by the Government .
"This Government proposal is unacceptable. It is an offer that constitutes
the largest adjustment that public sector income has suffered in recent years
," accused the general secretary of ATE Nacional, Rodolfo Aguiar, at the end of the joint meeting. with Executive officials.
The union member assured that with the increase set "the Government pushes tens of thousands of state workers into poverty", after which he ratified all the forceful measures ordered by the union in demand of "the reinstatement of all the dismissed workers and the renewal of all contracts that expire on March 31" in the national public administration.
The joint meeting took place within the framework of the growing concern of the unions over the versions that indicate that the Government is preparing to notify this Tuesday
the scrapping of up to 30% of the temporary plant of the national public administration
, which would imply around of 20 thousand layoffs.
According to union information, the pruning will be applied to a third of the universe of 64 thousand state employees governed by article 9 and about 6 thousand who provide service under resolution 1109 - in this case, monotributistas or specialized personnel under an agreement with universities - whose The employment relationship was extended on December 31 for a period of three months.
Due to the extra long holiday, ATE and UPCN claim, they warn that thousands of employees could receive the dreaded notification of the end of their employment relationship between Tuesday and Wednesday.
If this measure is confirmed,
it would replicate the same process carried out by the then Ministry of Modernization at the end of March 2016
.
In parallel, last week in ATE they came out to denounce 26 layoffs in the Human Rights Secretariat and, at the same time, the "clandestine" dissemination of instructions to apply mass layoffs in the public administration.
These are texts released by WhatsApp in which the authorities of each agency are advised to avoid discontinuing the agreements of pregnant women and union delegates and to eventually communicate "verbally" to those who will not have their contracts renewed.
Massive layoffs were also announced in areas such as SENASA, the Secretariat of Family Agriculture, ANSES, the Secretariat of Production and various state agencies located in the former SOMISA building, such as the Road Safety Agency.
Faced with this scenario, the leadership of ATE arranged for this Tuesday a national day of protest and a two-day strike at SENASA, which will affect agricultural exports.
"It is inevitable that protests will multiply and conflict will grow in the State in the coming weeks," Aguiar warned in this regard.