A ghost is haunting Argentina, the ghost of the woman who was the symbol of resistance against Menemism and the eternal defender of retirees. Editorial from “El Círculo Rojo”, a program from La Izquierda Diario that is broadcast every Thursday from 10 pm to 12 am on Radio Con Vos 89.9.

  • Norma Beatriz Guimil was the daughter of a tram operator and a domestic worker in the home of a traditional Argentine family: the Martínez de Hoz family.
  • Norma grew up in the Villa Domínico neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires and had to leave primary school in the second grade. At just 13 years old she began working in different jobs, most of them related to cleaning, either in companies (such as the former Bernalesa textile company and the Bagley food company) or also in private homes. She never had a registered job and was unable to retire, despite having worked from the age of 13 to 62.
  • She married Miguel, who was a graphic designer working in a factory that went bankrupt — like so many others at that time — towards the end of the dictatorship in 1982, and then she was never able to find a formal job again. She lived with him in another neighborhood in the south of Greater Buenos Aires: the San José neighborhood of Temperley.
  • When Miguel died, she received a very small pension that was not enough for anything, so her children had to help her survive.
  • Miguel’s surname was “Plá” and Norma not only made it her own, but she also made it famous. Because Norma Plá became an emblem of resistance against Menemism and particularly of the defense of those who are always the target of attack by the most savage governments: retirees.
  • On the corner of Pasco and Salta, in the San José neighborhood of Temperley, there is a small square that bears his name. It is small, and it is commendable that they named it after him, although in a country that has squares, streets and monuments for so many scoundrels, it deserves more.
  • Norma Plá was part of the civic and political education of an entire generation that was taking its first steps in the profession of resisting governments that were guided by an infamous principle: being weak with the strong and strong with the weak.
  • He took to the streets for the first time in 1991 to demand an increase in pensions. He participated in the first hundred marches that retirees and pensioners held every Wednesday for five years in front of Congress. He never missed a single one.
  • With Norma Plá at the head, the retirees started from the El Molino gate, the legendary cafeteria opposite Congress, and from there they went to Congress itself, to the Mortgage Bank, to the PAMI headquarters, to the Deliberative Council, to the Ministry of Economy. They “took” the PAMI headquarters several times, and in all the other places, Norma Plá tried to enter by jumping fences or knocking on doors.
  • He once organised a “choripaneada” in front of Domingo Cavallo’s house on Av. Libertador.
  • During a demonstration in 1991 in which they were requesting that judicial rulings that had ruled in favour of retirees be recognised, he knocked off a police officer’s hat.
  • After that event, she was invited to a panel of the alpha males of Menemist journalism headed by Gerardo Sofovich on the program “Polémica en el bar.” She painted the face of the Majuls and the Trebucks of those years. Look for the video on YouTube, she was a phenomenal polemicist.
  • He once again stood on stage and told former Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev to tell the world that retirees in Argentina were “starving.”
  • She was in solidarity with other causes such as that of the Roca railway workers during the time of privatisation and mass layoffs, and at another time, she also made a sausage party in memory of those who fell in Malvinas.
  • In addition to Sofovich’s club, she also came to Mirta Legrand’s table, and rock bands paid tribute to her or included her in their lyrics. Once she crossed paths with Cavallo and the minister had to act out an act and while crying he defended his economic policy.
  • For those who believe that cruelty came with this government, in October 1992, then-President Carlos Menem completely disregarded the pensioners who were demonstrating. He said: “If they have the strength to protest and send police to the hospital, they might as well have the strength to work, but they don’t.”
  • With a similar cynicism, Minister Guillermo Francos (trained in the school of Menemism) “ironicized” these days saying that “the left-wing protesters seem to have retired young,” because they were in the march. And TN “denounced” the legislators who were in the mobilization. Where can you be if not defending the people who worked all their lives in this country and are treated like a rag?
  • Many governments treated retirees as the last straw, by vetoing increases or changing the formula. In general, to save expenses to pay the debt.
  • I thought it was important to rescue this biography because —as Rodolfo Walsh wrote— “Our ruling classes have always tried to ensure that workers have no history.” They also try to rewrite the history of retirees, both men and women. And to show that they were always all old conservatives. Well, Norma Plá is a figure who shows that there was another history that was intertwined with other resistances that were showing the B side of the “Menemist party.”
  • The issue of retirees was one of the karmas of Menemism. It was also the beginning of the end of Mauricio Macri’s government during the protests against the pension reform in December 2017. Let us remember that Macri managed to approve this reform, but suffered a political defeat and began his decline.
  • Milei’s government is riding its own pony, believing itself to be infallible, like so many others, perhaps with a little more emphasis. Along with all the reactionary measures it is taking, it vetoed a meager increase for pensioners that Congress had voted for. The consulting firm Analogías asked in a survey that it published today what the opinion was on this veto: 64% were against it; only 22% in favor (the rest did not know).
  • A new mobilization is planned for next Wednesday so that Congress can speak out against the veto. Norma Plá once said in order to call for the struggle: “We have to call on young people and not so young people too, to continue to confront this government that tells us that we are in the first world. If this is the first world, I don’t want it.” It was necessary yesterday and it is necessary today.

    • Politics / Retirees / Javier Milei / The Red Circle / Menemism

    Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com



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