A report of the Research and Training Center of the Argentine Republic (Figure) accounts for the fall of the minimum wage in the last five years. The report, released this Tuesday, shows that This item had a drop of 39.9% compared to December 2019when the government of the Frente de Todos began, led by Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner.
Analyzing the current moment, the report indicates that “the minimum, vital and mobile wage had a brutal loss of purchasing power as soon as the current government took officeproduct of the effect of currency devaluation and its impact on prices. In the subsequent months, in the National Council of Employment, Productivity and the Minimum, Vital and Mobile Wage, it was the Ministry of Labor that determined the nominal increases, which meant that it remained practically frozen at that depressed value. There was no recovery for the minimum wage, which in October with $271,571 showed a real value 28.4% lower than in November 2023”.
The Government and the big employers are advancing in attack the living conditions of the working class. This attack began in the first days of the Mileista administration, with the brutal devaluation operated by Minister Caputo. At the same time, in the negotiation rounds of the Minimum, Living and Mobile Wage, the Executive Branch imposed very low amounts, very far from the already moderate request of the unions and social organizations.
The Cifra report also indicates that “this loss is accumulates with declines from previous years: In each of the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, the minimum wage saw its purchasing power decrease by more than 10%. Thus, In October 2024 the purchasing power of this minimum wage was 39.9% lower than in November 2019at the end of the Cambiemos government, and 54.0% lower than November 2015.”
In this way it is confirmed that, in this item, a pre-existing wage loss continueswhich came with force under the government of the Frente de Todosled by Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner.
Under that government The wage loss affected all sectors of the working class to a greater or lesser extent. The hardest hit sectors were retirees and informal workers.
In July 2024, salaries were 2.6% below their November 2023 level, and 25.6% below 2015. At the same time, a drop of 16.9% was recorded in the public sector. in purchasing power in relation to November 2023 and a loss of 41.1% compared to 2015. For their part, unregistered workers experienced a drop of the real salary of 10.3% compared to November 2023 and 55.6% compared to 2016.
The report also indicates that “The historical decline is so great that the real value of the minimum wage is already lower than that in force during most of the 1990s.” and in the final crisis of the convertibility regime, when this policy had been abandoned as a tool to determine salary floors and promote lower salary inequality.”
The wage loss is, however, deeper and more widespread. Covers the entire working classalthough there is a sector under agreement that, in recent months, has stopped losing in comparative terms with inflation. However, this does not mean recovering what was lost since 2019, including the fall under the Milei Government.
In another recent report, prepared by the Internal Board of ATE-Indec, the difference between the salaries received by the vast majority of the working class and the cost of a basket that meets the needs of a family. It is noted that “a worker needed, in October 2024, $1,547,169 to satisfy the minimum needs of a household made up of a couple over 30 years of age with two children of school age. This value is made up of $534,478 .- necessary to acquire a Minimum Food Basket and $ 1,012,691.- to access other goods and services basics.”
This panorama of falling wages is completed with attacks against the working conditions of the working class and with layoffs. Faced with this situation, the inaction of the Peronist union leadership is almost total. In fact, the CGT has just announced that it will not call for forceful measures against the Government and the adjustment. The complicity of the Peronist union bureaucracy in the fall in wages is more than evident.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
