Left-wing social organizations returned this Wednesday to mobilize in Buenos Aires and in other parts of Argentina to claim the Government of Alberto Fernández an expansion of social plans in the midst of the context of high inflation and poverty in the country, which raises the controversy due to the increasingly common street closures.
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The call “Unidad Piquetera” resumes action measures after the last “failed” meeting with the Minister of Social Development, Juan Zabaleta, in response to the demand to expand the social plan program.
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The latest show of strength by these social organizations was a 48-hour camp, at the end of last March, on 9 de Julio Avenue in the Argentine capital.
Since then, the organizations have met with Zabaleta on two occasions, as explained in their statement, but have been denied the claim to “universalize” social programs and increase the amount of 16,500 pesos (146 dollars) that the beneficiaries receive.
The conversion of social plans
Argentines want work and the way today is to work, and so we are going to continue discussing. And we will also continue to defend those who circulate on the street.
The Fernández Government maintains its position that there will be no more registrations in social programss, but its goal is to transform social plans into work.
In recent weeks, the crossroads of opinions have multiplied in the political sphere between conveners of this type of mobilization and those who are against the damage that street closures cause in the daily movement of citizens.
The organizations denounce that the government’s refusal is due to the “deepening of the application of the agreed adjustment” with the International Monetary Fund -with which Argentina signed an agreement last month to renegotiate its debt of 45,000 million dollars-, which entails strong cuts in public spending and the “precarious” resources directed to the “working population”.
In this regard, the minister himself expressed, in statements to Public Television, that what must be agreed upon is to “link the programs to formal employment,” and called for that to be the protagonist of the discussion table.
“To those who work, to those who undoubtedly have the right to be able to do it every day, but it is not labor against labor, it is making decisions so that each sector of Argentina can grow and develop,” he added.
Economic recovery
This Wednesday the demonstrators organized protests in various parts of the country and in Buenos Aires they will march from the headquarters of the Ministry of Social Development, located on 9 de Julio Avenue, to the central Plaza de Mayo, again generating traffic disorders.
The Argentine economy recovered 10.3% in 2021 after three years of severe economic recession, while the unemployment rate fell to 7%.
But the problems of job insecurity still persist and the challenge of an acceleration of inflation that last February was 52.3% year-on-year with its correlate in the level of poverty, which at the end of last year reached 37.3% of people.
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