[stop-imf] Argentine unions call for strike to protest IMF austerity plan

[Robert Weissman]

Argentine unions call for strike to protest IMF austerity plan

BUENOS AIRES, May 31 (AFP) - Tens of thousands of people marched Wednesday
through downtown Buenos Aires to protest a new government economic austerity
plan, with union leaders calling for a one-day national strike next week.
In an unusual move, the protest march was strongly supported by Roman
Catholic church leaders, who hold the IMF largely responsible for
Argentina's economic malaise.

Waving Argentine flags, the protesters paraded down the streets leading to
the Plaza de Mayo and staged a massive rally in front of the Casa Rosada,
Argentina's presidential palace.

"Nothing will move in Argentina, not even the leaves on the trees," labor
leader Hugo Moyano told the crowd, in calling for a June 9 national strike.
Argentina "could derail the financial dictatorship" of the International
Monetary Fund, he said, while at the same time urging his countrymen to
refuse to pay their taxes.

Organizers said 80,000 people joined the protest, held one day after IMF
economists arrived here to review the government's budgetary and revenue
accounts.

Never before had a visit of IMF economists sparked such wide-ranging
protests, uniting previously divided unions and garnering support from
Argentina's Catholic clerics, traditionally among the most conservative in
Latin America.

Union leaders used the rally to call for a national strike that would be the
largest ever to confront President Fernando de la Rua, who took office in
December.

A strike earlier in May, to protest changes to Argentina's labor laws, was
supported only by the most militant branch of the powerful General
Confederation of Labor (CGT), headed by trucker Moyano.
But Rodolfo Daer, who heads a moderate branch of the union, has joined with
Moyano for next week's strike, as has Victor de Gennaro, of the Argentine
Workers Confederation.

Catholic church leaders have denounced the president's austerity plan, which
would raise taxes, reduce social spending and cut the salaries of government
employees in a bid to win badly needed loans from the IMF.
Moyano urged Argentines to engage in "fiscal disobedience" by refusing to
pay their personal taxes, which already jumped between eight and 22 percent
in January -- the steepest increase in a decade.

"We are going to be imprisoned, fined. We're going to hit them where it
hurts, we're going to call for fiscal disobedience so that Argentines'
strength doesn't go to foreign debt," Moyano said.

De la Rua inherited a public debt of 115 billion dollars from his
predecessor, Carlos Menem.

The IMF has granted Argentina a 7.3 billion dollar loan in exchange for a
commitment to keep this year's budget deficit below 4.7 billion dollars. The
government had spent nearly half that amount in the first four months of
2000.

The belt-tightening is generally supported by business leaders here, who say
the reforms are needed to bolster the economy and create new jobs.
Argentina's unemployment rate stands at 14 percent, but another 14 percent
of the workforce is underemployed -- meaning they have temporary or
part-time work that is insufficient to support a single person at the
poverty line.


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 Thousands Protest Argentina Government Cuts, IMF

 By Robert Elliott

 BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Thousands of union activists on Wednesday
marched through downtown Buenos Aires protesting government cutbacks they
blame on the International Monetary Fund's constant call for economic
austerity.

 Leaving the center-city streets unusually bare of traffic, the march
brought together the hard-line and moderate wings of the General Workers
Confederation (CGT) -- the country's largest grouping of unions -- for the
first time since they split in late February.

 An estimated 20,000 marchers descended on the plaza facing Government
House under cloudy skies, some waving banners that read ``The Death of
Salaries.'' Ten people clad in black hoods and shirts labeled ``IMF''
carried a casket labeled ``education, salaries, small-and-medium sized
business, health.''

                         ``We have got to put an end to this savage IMF
austerity,'' said Patricia Walsh, a leader of the United Leftist Militants
party who helped lead the march.

                         President Fernando de la Rua remarked the strike
was ''perhaps a call to international financial organizations that they
must also attend to necessary social solidarity.''

 The two CGT factions will begin a 24-hour national strike on June 9
against public sector salary cuts and layoffs, said Victor de Gennaro,
head of the Argentine Workers Center union.

 The Argentine government on Monday slashed $938 million from planned
expenditures to help lasso its runaway fiscal deficit, which in 1999 hit a
record $7.1 billion. As per a $7.2 billion standby loan deal with the IMF,
the 2000 deficit has to come in at no more than $4.7 billion.

 The government cutbacks, including $590 million clipped from public
sector salaries, are among a long line of austerity measures the Argentine
public has had to swallow.

 The stock market rose on the spending reduction, but Congress remained
closed as public sector employees railed against the dismissal of 700
full-time workers after the shutdown of the legislature's printing press.

 Top economists concurred it will take a further downsizing of the state
and other creative moves to bring the government's books in line and
kick-start the economy, which has been stagnant for the last 22 months.

 ``This is a sickness and we are trying to apply the medicine,'' De la Rua
said in defense of the cuts, dubbing the country's wobbling economy as his
``inheritance.''

 Argentina's government sliced public spending by $511 million in the
first quarter of the year and will continue on that pace through December,
Undersecretary of Economic and Regional Programming Miguel Bein said on
Wednesday.