Today, under Javier Milei’s government, Argentina appears to be the broken showcase of Latin American neoliberalism. The media celebrate macroeconomic indicators but cannot hide the social catastrophe: 55% poverty, wages that do not cover the basic basket (950 dollars), and unemployment that has risen to 8.1%. The economic crisis Argentina is facing is an expression of the global crisis of capitalism. But policies of tax cuts and public spending cuts have further deteriorated the living conditions of the working class.

The myth of economic recovery: figures that make headlines but do not fill plates.

Among the “successes” proclaimed by the bourgeois press are the record trade surplus ($1.2 billion in 2024) and the “control” of inflation (98.2% in April 2025 compared to 292% in April 2024). But this has also led to a free fall in wages, with purchasing power falling by 22% since 2023. Sixty-five percent of workers earn less than $500 a month, while the cost of the basic basket exceeds $950. Despite a symbolic improvement in the minimum wage ($265), it is the lowest in Latin America.

The results of the economic adjustment shock are also reflected in unemployment, which reached 8.1% in April (compared to 5.5% in 2023), with 42,000 public sector layoffs since 2024. Industry is operating at 58% of its capacity, limiting job creation. Services, which account for 60% of employment, have lost 20% of jobs. And, as a result of the agreements with the IMF, we can only expect a further increase in unemployment.

Another important factor is the trend in public debt, which reached $466.8 billion in 2024, with negative net reserves of $12 billion. This April, the granting of a new $13 billion loan by the IMF imposes further cuts in health and education and consolidates the vicious circle of debt, austerity, and poverty.

“It should therefore come as no surprise that education and healthcare workers say: “My children ask me why dinner is bread and mate. I don’t know how to explain to them that my salary is worth less than a year ago.”

Trade unions, the resistance that never was: demagogic announcements of general strikes, but with the aim of legitimizing the worsening conditions

The 12 general strikes in 2024 were neither general nor did they affect the functioning of businesses. Disputes between the CGT and the CTAA (both pro-employer) divided workers into isolated actions. The leaders of the regime’s unions, while signing agreements at the top, held back street protests. Workers’ concentrations were only used to negotiate with the government on how to implement the economic adjustment. In April, they called a “national strike” that excluded key transport and energy sectors and was yet another example of the betrayal of the union leadership, despite the discontent and willingness to fight in the streets and workplaces.

The regime’s trade union confederations approved 15% cuts to pensions and accepted labor flexibility in exchange for crumbs for the trade union bureaucracies.

The parliamentary left: inflammatory speeches but complacent votes in an institution at the service of the bourgeoisie’s class dictatorship

Last December, the FIT-U (with much propaganda and agitation in the trade union movement) did not vote against the labor reform that facilitates layoffs. It did not even present initiatives to increase wages and improve working conditions in lithium mining companies, which in 2024 achieved a profit of 82.6% ($1.2 billion). Even from the base of the parliamentary left-wing parties, activists protested: “In the assemblies, they talk about revolution, but in Parliament, they just tweet their indignation, ” or “they call us to fight, but in Parliament, they make deals with the right.” The collaboration with the bourgeois regime is so dirty that the theatrical poses of the opposition can no longer fool even their own grassroots activists.

Parliamentarism is once again confirmed not only as a useless tool for the era of imperialism, but as a real betrayal of the working class, as well as of the revolution. The parties that animate the Argentine parliament (and in all countries) are there, as a minority and as a majority, only to give political support to the class rule of the bourgeoisie and to promote its business and the exploitation of the workers.

In Argentina, the cycle of economic crisis, debt, adjustment, social explosion, and political control by opportunist parties and treacherous trade union federations has been repeated, leaving workers defenseless against the various bourgeois governments and the bosses.A workers’ assembly in Salta in April declared: “The only general strike that matters is the one that paralyzes the country and defeats the regime.” Workers can break the cycle of betrayal and opportunism and become a powerful force capable of stopping the anti-worker policies of the Argentine government. The challenge is to multiply the struggles, bringing them together in a general strike to the bitter end and without minimum services, and to advance in the unity of action of the trade union movement to make the leap forward in the rebirth of real class-based unions. All this must be done independently of the current trade union confederations and federations, distancing ourselves from the opportunist left parties and their parliamentarism, and against calls to defend the homeland and the national economy.