The Argentine justice system stopped the labor reform promoted by President Javier Milei through a Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU), the first serious setback in the 24 days that the ultraliberal has been in the Casa Rosada.
“The need to adopt such numerous measures would not be objectively evident,” the Chamber of Labor argued this Wednesday in a passage of the ruling, which thus agreed with the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), which filed a request for a measure. precautionary measure to paralyze the effects of the DNU.
The decree significantly makes labor relations more flexible, reducing compensation and extending employee trial periods. In addition, it cuts part of the funding to unions through health insurance.
The ruling, voted by two judges with the opposition of a third, indicates that the government does not demonstrate either the need or the urgency of circumventing Congress, which is the power of the state in charge of legislating.
The government reacted through Rodolfo Barra, who as Treasury Attorney is the head of all State lawyers, arguing that the Chamber of Labor is not competent to hear the matter and that it should be the jurisdiction for Administrative Litigation. intervene.
The reaction of the justice system is a surprise for the Milei government, which expected the issue to be delayed until February, since January is a month of judicial fair, summer vacation in the southern hemisphere.
On December 20, Milei signed a DNU that includes 366 measures over more than 80 pages. The DNU “is advancing against some of the most powerful lobbies in Argentina, which cannot help but be astonished at the still indecipherable impact of so many measures in such dissimilar sectors,” La Nación noted at the time.
The measures include the repeal of price controls in the Argentine economy, the flexibility of the labor regime, the opening to the privatization of public companies and the repeal of the rent law, which may be agreed in pesos, dollars , euros or the currency you want.
A week later, Milei sent Congress a mega bill that aims to turn the country into the most liberal nation in Latin America, grants superpowers to the head of state and opts for a strong hand in security issues.
The project, called “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines”, consists of 664 articles spread over 351 pages. The pompous name plays with the “Bases and starting points for the organization of the Argentine Republic” that the liberal Juan Bautista Alberdi wrote in the first half of the 19th century, and which served as the ideological substrate for the National Constitution of 1853/1860, renovated in 1994.
Guillermo Francos, the Minister of the Interior, went in person to Congress to present the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, with the voluminous project, kept in a wooden box with the national colors.
The question at that time was whether Milei really intended to implement everything he proposed or simply went further than imaginable to negotiate. We must not forget that it has 38 deputies out of 257 and seven senators out of 72.
Part of those parliamentarians met this Wednesday with the president and Menem in the Casa Rosada: Milei wants more speed in the processing of the “Bases Law”, but the condition of a very clear parliamentary minority of his government and the opposition’s refusal to grant the president almost unlimited power complicate that desire.
