RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Today, thousands of demonstrators participated in a march in Buenos Aires and different parts of the country called by social organizations demanding an extension of social programs and job creation.
The march ended at the Ministry of Social Development, in the center of the city of Buenos Aires. On the way, the columns of demonstrators cut off the public road due to the size of the protest, which is replicated in several provinces.
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This is the first mass demonstration since the new Minister of Social Development, Juan Zabaleta, took office only a week ago.
Social demonstrations have increased this year in Argentina, given the economic crisis the country is going through, deepened by the covid-19 pandemic, and given the primary elections on September 12 next to choose the candidates for the legislative elections next November.
Argentina recorded a year-on-year inflation of 51.8% last July, a fall in employment, and poverty which had already climbed to 42% in the second half of 2020 after the economy suffered last year the second deepest fall since 2001 – 9.9 % – accumulating three years in recession.
DEMANDS
The demonstrators demand an increase in the amounts and quotas of the social programs paid by the Government, but also the creation of genuine employment and public works plans.
“What we most came to demand is jobs for the comrades,” Daniel Jaime, national leader of the Young Revolutionary Independent Workers (JTRI) movement, told Efe.
“We want the social plans to be cut, we know that it is not a living wage,” he added.
However, Jaime indicated that they also went out to “demand social plans” to assist people in poverty and indigence so that the promise made by the Ministry of Development, which has not yet been fulfilled, is fulfilled.
Jaime added that they also went to “claim food for the dining rooms and picnic areas” of the province of Buenos Aires because, he said, “the merchandise is no longer enough” due to the increase in the number of families that come to them.
GOVERNMENT
“We are waiting for the response from the new minister,” Jaime recounted since Zabaleta said he was going to meet with the social movements.
Zabaleta has stated to the press the challenge he faces of transforming social plans into work.
The Minister of Social Development informed me that he met this Tuesday with the head of Economy, Martín Guzmán, who talked “about the need to associate the transfer of income to training and work” and about “the importance of investing in infrastructure in popular neighborhoods”.
According to the leader of the Polo Obrero (Workers’ Pole), Eduardo Belliboni told TN channel, “social plans are a disgrace” because “it is what governments do in the face of the failure to create sources of employment”, but the State “has to assist people who do not have enough to eat”.
“Social plans have to be for everyone and without intermediaries, and that does not happen”, warned Belliboni.
He also criticized the government’s economic plan because instead of creating, for example, a public works plan that generates employment, it continues “draining national resources towards financial speculation”.