"Norma Plá has to kill Cavallo"
. The song by Las Manos de Filippi that Bersuit Vergarabat popularized is a postcard of rock from the '90s, a milestone of protest lyrics that highlights a grandmother who led the demand for an increase in retirements and pensions. From Temperley,
Norma Plá
led the marches for an increase for retirees, consoled the former Minister of Economy
Domingo Cavallo
when he burst into tears at his claim and even confronted
Mikhail Gorbachev
, former leader of the Soviet Union, on a visit to Buenos Aires. Aires.
These memories, and some unpublished ones like the Christmas when they had to watch her because she had threatened to hang herself in Plaza Lavalle in front of the Courts, are revived in the voice of
Jésica Plá
, sociologist, Conicet researcher, specialist in social classes and defender of the role of the State - especially in the pandemic - and with a look at the vote of the different social classes for Javier Milei.
Raised amid telephone threats due to the visibility of her grandmother's claim, Jésica Plá was a teenager when her grandmother organized the first popular soup kitchen with neighbors in front of Plaza Lavalle. It was to complain when Carlos Menem's government did not adjust pensions despite high inflation and
she had to juggle $1,135,000 australes
(something like $113.5).
In parallel with the current situation, Norma Plá asked Cavallo to speed up the promotion of retirees and pensioners. With the convertibility of the Argentine peso in the same value as the dollar, the claim was transformed into a number that she popularized divided into two: four, fifty.
She asked for a minimum retirement of $450
, compared to the $150 they charged when Menem established the 1 to 1, in 1991.
"I remember more than $450, but when I watch the old videos they start with the request for improvements in Australs," says Jésica. Her grandmother grew in popularity as the demand spread, the Wednesday marches became increasingly filled with protesters.
She organized a
choriceada at the door of Cavallo's house
, argued on public television with Gerardo Sofovich and stood up live to Mauro Viale who criticized her for "seeking prominence."
She wanted her granddaughter to study Law but she opted for Sociology. Today she is a researcher at the Gino Germani Research Institute and after publishing a book on the impact of covid-19 on the social structure and the labor market, Jésica reflects on the vote for Javier Milei in the popular neighborhoods and rehearses the concept:
" The assisted one is the other
. "
-
Does your grandmother as a reference for retirees emerge from the hyperinflation of Alfonsín in 1989?
-I don't know if exactly from '89. She was a girl and I remember a lot because my family had a very bad time in those years. I have that very vivid thing. At one time there was nothing on the internet and with digitalization I started to find a lot of things. In fact, at the Germani (Institute) where I work, I found a lot of files that I didn't even know were there. I saw a video of the '90 Census, which was done in '91, and it made me laugh because I am a sociologist and I work with secondary data, so I am a fan of the EPH of the Census, and she said:
'I'm not going to census because for this Government, retirees do not exist
. '
-How did it come about?
-I have the memory of hyperinflation, of not having anything to eat. It's all like a course of Argentine social history. My grandfather had been a graphic worker and they kicked him out during the dictatorship. They made covers, they bound. The company had disappeared and they were forced to do binding, because my mother tells me that she bound books with my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandfather died young, my grandmother was left a widow with the pension. My father and my uncle, who are now around 70, were very close in age to the other two brothers, and she always said that she went to complain at the first protest because she was not enough for my uncle to go to study in La Plata. .
-Was it radical?
-She was radical. A while ago I met some colleagues from Catamarca who are from the UCR and one sent me a video where she said that she had torn up her radical card when Alfonsín betrayed her. She also said that she voted for Carlos Menem in the first presidency because the change was coming. She was always on the Committee that was around the house, she participated, she gathered things, we brought toys. She was always very active in the community. It flooded, it still floods, that's why I'm talking about structural problems, and they went out to look for mattresses, to distribute food to the kids. I grew up in that aura of helping, of solidarity, and at some point they organized with a couple of others from the neighborhood and said:
'Let's organize a popular potluck in Plaza Lavalle, in Tribunales
. '
-She became a reference, she went to Mirtha Legrand's program, Domingo Cavallo's crying was popular and she even interrupted Mikhail Gorbachev when he came as former president of the Soviet Union. What do you remember about that?
-I remember everything. When he went to Mirtha Legrand he wanted to take me and my mother wouldn't let me. The other day I watched the video of Gorbachev again and I thought it was a lot. I have a 10-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old daughter and I watch the videos with them.
The episode was famous. On the night of December 2, 1992, away from the power of the former USSR and on a visit organized by the Colloquium Foundation, at that time chaired by the former Foreign Ministry official during the government of Raúl Alfonsín Jorge "Negro" Romero, the former President of the Soviet Union gave a free talk at the Gran Rex Theater. Among the 1,500 spectators was Norma Plá who, by raising her voice, interrupted him and handed him a document in which she denounced the economic situation of retirees in Argentina.
#LosNoventa 👵 Norma Plá, leader of the retirees, interrupts a talk by Mijail Gorbachev, to hand him a document that denounced the situation of Argentine retirees. Buenos Aires, 1992.
📼 Norma Plá. Video document. ID: 524.VB.011900.A pic.twitter.com/yb6Y9VCy7T
— General Archive (@AGNArgentina) October 28, 2022
Norma Plá was an inexhaustible source of anecdotes but also scares for her family. "There was one Christmas when she had said that she was going to hang herself in Plaza Lavalle and there was a whole family situation to take care of her, to make sure she didn't leave, because she was half capable of anything," Jésica tells
Clarín
.
On June 5, 1991, Cavallo, as Minister of Economy, gave explanations in the Chamber of Deputies, where two marches of retirees converged. Norma Plá managed to skip the surveillance, confronted the former minister and when she reproached him for the economic situation,
Cavallo cried
.
-Did you tell anything about Cavallo's story, about that cry?
-I remember seeing it on TV. I even thought it was quite honest on his part. I saw it in its entirety and he tells her:
'Believe me, I studied to know how to solve this
. '
From his perspective he was convinced that it would be resolved.
-Have you ever received calls from the Menem Government?
-No from the Government, yes threats. I grew up picking up the phone, I was little and they said:
"We're going to catch you, we're going to go look for you, stop screwing around
. "
My mother came running to pick me up from school because they told her they were going to pick me up. That always existed.
-Why do you think your grandmother ended up being in rock songs?
-There was a link between my grandmother and the youth, also because of my uncle who was very young. She was also looking for them. There is a moment when she is with the bikers, she loved them. When she died everyone went to the wake, there were many kids, students, bikers. She was very loved among the youth.
"The assisted one is the other", the demonization of the planero and the vote for Milei
Today, at 41 years old, Jésica Plá is a doctor in Social Sciences, with a degree in Sociology. She teaches at universities and also works as treasurer of the public school her daughters attend. She is also a researcher at Conicet, one of the public organizations in which in recent weeks the chainsaw of
Javier Milei
's government has passed and left layoffs.
Together with Agustín Salvia (Director of the Argentine Social Debt Observatory of the UCA) and Santiago Poy (Conicet researcher specializing in poverty), Jesica Plá edited the book
"The Argentine society of the post-pandemic", an x-ray of the impact of covid-19 in the social structure and the urban labor market
.
-What was the methodology for measuring work in the pandemic?
-There are several chapters, where we study what happened to the people who had been working blankly, whether they were able to keep their jobs or not; with the people who work in the informal sector, the self-employed, the street vendors, those who cook at home, what happened to that, if they continued working, if they were able to reconvert some strategy that will not involve them going out into the streets, because that was the most affected sector. And then, a series of statistical exercises where what is done is to simulate the effect that it would have had on monetary poverty, on how many people are poor in the country, and on inequality, that the inequality that speaks of the distribution of income, of everything a country produces, how much each part takes.
-This is where the Emergency Family Income (IFE) comes in as a State policy
-The IFE, above all, had a strong impact. Although when one looks at the trends, inequality tended to remain the same or grow a little during the pandemic period, if these intervention measures had not existed it would have been much higher. They had a mitigating impact on social inequalities. In terms of poverty, Santiago Poy's article analyzes this new phenomenon of poor workers, which has also been consolidated since the pandemic. Registered workers who have a registered salary income, but who still do not cover a basket necessary for subsistence.
-Was the public sector the one that managed to maintain income the most at that time?
-The public sector was somehow the only one that managed to maintain equal income. Since the employer is the State, the parity agreements are fulfilled. On the other hand, in the private sector during the pandemic that did not happen like that, it varies by branch. But in the general average, although parity exists, what happened later, other universities did qualitative interviews, they say that people said:
'They told me: well, if you come to work you earn the same as last year and if not, look for yourself. another job'
. It made a series of more informal arrangements possible, so private sector income tended to produce inequality, to generate more inequality because it tended to fall.
-Was there employment recovery afterwards?
-In general, the creation of employment was not registered employment but was subsistence employment, informal employment. These are self-employed tasks that people, like entrepreneurs, invent a job to survive on. This is what stands out most about the end of the pandemic, the increase in employment, but all informal employment.
-Why did people who lost purchasing power vote for a liberal government?
-It's the question we all have. In addition to this project, I collaborated with people from the University of Quilmes and other national universities, in general what we had been predicting Milei's triumph. We saw it in surveys and with more qualitative methods, interviews, focus groups. There is a strong challenge from the State, to state intervention. But there fails to recognize oneself as a beneficiary of that state intervention. I once wrote a note with the title:
'The assisted one is the other'
. This figure of the others always appears, the lazy ones, the planers, those who don't want to work, always as the figure of the assisted one. There is demonization and blaming that this strong state intervention was what led us to the situation we are in, at least at that time between August and October of last year.
-Has that grown in recent years?
-I think that takes on more force when there are structural problems. If you have 30 percent of the population working informally for 10 to 15 years, young people who leave school completing it or not as a structural problem. You improve the educational level, there are more and more people who study, who graduate, but that does not change the structural conditions of access to certain goods, housing, the possibility of planning one's life. These problems were structural for decades and it seems very difficult to me to demand that people be able to do this exercise of:
'Although a government that does not have these interventions and this type of social protections, we are all going to be harmed
. '
In any case, the solution should be more intervention by the State and not running it away.