Teachers, doctors and students face the vetoes of Milei with strikes and marches

Teachers and university students spoke this Friday against the chainsaw of Javier Milei. With strikes and mobilizations, they converged in their protests in Buenos Aires with doctors and other workers of pediatric hospitals. In both cases, the purpose of protesters was to reject the president’s veto to two laws that grant greater funds for public university and health. It was just an advance of the national march that is presumed massive and that was convened by most of the unions and organizations of both sectors for next Wednesday. That day the opposition will seek in Congress twisting to Milei and insist with the vetoed norms. The Executive responded to the claims with a judicial complaint against the authorities of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the largest house of studies in the country.

The pulse between the ultra -rightist government and the university community is almost as long as the management of Milei. As he never achieved parliamentary consensus to approve a budget, the president governs with successive extensions of the distribution of resources of 2023, modified according to his own criteria, that of whom he declared to be “the mole that destroys the State from the inside.”

According to the estimates of the National Interuniversity Council (CIN), since December 2023, when Milei assumed, the budget of the universities suffered a real fall of 30%. Worse was the loss for salaries of teachers and higher education workers: their purchasing power fell 40% in the same period.

“The country is going through a very serious situation,” warned the president of the CIN, Oscar Alpa. “For two years it has not has a national budget and for public universities the situation is also extreme, because it is from the budget that the system, autarchy and university autonomy are financed,” he said.

To reverse the adjustment implemented by the Executive, Congress approved a new University Financing Law last month, with support from the entire opposition. The norm provides for a salary improvement according to inflation, as well as an update of the funds for operation, infrastructure, scholarships and other items. Milei vetoed her this week, as he had done last year with a similar law. In 2024, Parliament could not reject the presidential decision. On Wednesday 17 will begin to know if he can do it this year, in front of a more worn government, just defeated by Peronism in the legislative elections of the province of Buenos Aires and already near the decisive national elections of October 26.

But the first reaction against the veto occurred this Friday. Teachers’ unions fulfilled a national strike, while some unions led by left -wing groups demonstrated in the Plaza de Mayo, together with student organizations.

“No a veto,” said one of the flags that students loaded. A few meters away, a poster demanded “public health for childhoods.” There, in front of the Casa Rosada, students and teachers agreed with a protest of doctors, nurses and other workers of pediatric health centers, mostly from the Garrahan hospital. Like the university students, they mobilized in rejection of a veto of Milei, in this case against the Emergency Law in Pediatrics, another standard approved to reverse with the adjustment that affects the budget of the pediatric hospitals and the salaries of their staff.

“This veto, far from being a sign of strength, is a desperate resource of a government in crisis,” Alejandro Lipcovich, leader of the State Workers’ Association at the Garrahan hospital. “Salary recomposition is an urgent necessity, as renunciations and hospital emptying continue,” he said. The Garrahan staff, the largest pediatric center in the country, began a strike on Friday that will continue until Sunday morning. And it will return to next Wednesday, in tune with the university community.

Milei issued the vetoes of both laws arguing that they were necessary to “preserve fiscal balance.” From the perspective of President Ultra, with these and other standards the opposition only intends to disrupt its economic program from the Congress, today in crisis due to a new devaluation of the peso and a marked financial instability.

The main response of the Executive to the claims of this Friday consisted of the announcement of a judicial complaint against the UBA authorities. What are they accused of? Having placed on the cover of the site web of the University the Legend “No a Veto”. The Ministry of Human Capital, in charge of Sandra Pettovello, pointed against the officials in charge of the UBA for breaching their duties and “blocking” access to the portal “with content of a partisan political nature.”

Hours before, the rector of the UBA, Ricardo Gelpi, had warned that the functioning of the house of studies is at risk due to lack of resources. “We are going to start with a operating expenses restriction plan,” he said. “The UBA will work in a critical state to end the year.”