This Thursday, the 18th, a new meeting of the Salary, Productivity and Employment Council (CNS) will be held. It will be held by videoconference. As always, the business chambers and the workers’ unions will be present, with the government as “referee”.
It is worth clarifying that on the last occasions there was no agreement (although the CGT did not go with great pretensions) so the government set the number according to its opinion. As it is an “arbitrator” who always charges the same side, it set the SMVM at $234,315.12 for monthly employees and $1,171.58 per hour for day laborers.
It should be noted that it not only marks the “minimum” that can be agreed upon in collective bargaining, but also impacts unemployment benefits and pensions, as well as some activities. This is not the case with the (former) Potenciar Trabajo, which, in a criminal attitude by Minister Pettovello, was “disengaged” and frozen.
The “minimum” has always been a pittance, it must be said. But La Libertad Avanza has been determined to destroy it even more. To begin with, it has 32.1% less purchasing power than it had in November 2023.
This is the analysis of a study by the Research and Training Centre (CIFRA-CTA). According to the data, “nominal increases amounted to 60.5% compared to November 2023, when inflation of over 136% is projected to accumulate in the same period. In this way, the real loss of almost a third of the minimum wage was consummated. This loss is added to the significant reductions that took place in previous years, which exceeded 10% annually in 2018, 2019 and 2020.”
If measured in historical terms, “this salary would only be enough in July to buy 56.8% of the basic food basket that defines the poverty line for a typical family and 25.6% of the poverty basket, ratios comparable to those in force during the final crisis of convertibility in 2001/2002.”
In other words, let’s say that we are facing an attack on the living conditions of the working majority. That is why there is nothing “vital” about it: it cannot guarantee food, heating, transportation or the satisfaction of the basic needs of a human being. Not to mention a family basket that takes into account the consumption of a family and, according to Indec workers, is close to 2 million pesos after the devaluation and liberalization of prices.
This is a confiscation, a theft, a plundering of the pockets of millions. The same as the deterioration of wages, pensions or the income of informal workers.
For example, if one takes into account the purchasing power of the Minimum Wage in 2015, it would correspond to 537 thousand pesos today. That is to say that in less than 10 years, different governments have stolen the income of millions peso by peso, until reaching 300 thousand pesos per month. Today it is 234 thousand pesos, the math is simple. That is what we mean when we say that the president speaks in the “May Pact” of respecting the “private property” of the owners of the country. The working people are robbed day by day, to the point of being deprived of any property, even food.
The other table from Cifra is also compelling: it shows the relationship between the basic and poverty basket and the Minimum Wage. It can be seen how companies that set the prices of such basic items as food or services are increasingly appropriating popular income (more and more “wages” are needed to cover it).
This is a planned misery, which continues to degrade the only class that produces, the one that makes the country work. A plunder that ranges from “informal” work, this “minimum wage”, the lowered collective bargaining agreements and the income tax for those who manage to do better. As we reported yesterday, under Milei’s government, businessmen improved their share in the distribution of the wealth produced by 40% in the first quarter of the year.
The CGT announced that it will ask that, at the very least, the update incorporate the inflation increase for May and June. A 4.8% increase. It cannot be so miserable. The only thing they hope for is that the loss remains intact. No recovery. The CTA Autónoma held a conference where it denounced the situation and “considered that the reference value that should be taken into account is 865 thousand pesos.” But it does not call for any measure to impose this increase.
The Left Front proposes another solution: we must touch the interests of big companies so that no one earns less than the cost of a family basket, also reducing the working day and distributing those hours to generate genuine work. We have to stand up and coordinate the working class to prevent them from sinking us further.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
