A few hours before the Peronist political dialogue table made its much-announced debut, the news broke that the banking union called a strike for this Thursday, in the midst of a wage dispute. And that fact sets the tone for what will be the first great test for unity between the Kirchner and Albertista sectors: salary policy.
Coincidentally, the leader of La Bancaria, Sergio Palazzowas one of the delegates for Kirchnerism at the Frente de Todos meeting, a presence that in itself functioned as a reminder that the aspiration of the sector he leads Cristina Kirchner It is not just making electoral agreements but influence the course of government management.
Or, as defined Andrés “Cuervo” Larroqueanother of the delegates, the need to “tighten the nuts” in management.
The banking conflict is not one more: not only does it encompass one of the strongest unions -in one of the highest paid unions in the country- but, in addition, it has been an example of the very Cristina Kirchner has pointed out what should be the attitude of all trade unionism.
Salaries: antecedents of a conflictive negotiation
The memory of what happened last year is fresh, when after a conflictive negotiation that included strikes, the banking union achieved a 60% adjustment. The figure was shocking, because it was detached from the reference of 40% that the then Minister of Economy, Martin Guzmanand the then Minister of Labor, Claudio Moroni, They wanted it to prevail in the parities. The official argument for sticking to that number was that too high increases implied the usual risk that entrepreneurs would transfer their higher costs labor to the prices of their products and services.
But Palazzo not only did not abide by the official guideline – at that point it was already clear that the government’s inflation target would be widely exceeded – but also accused the Ministry of Labor of siding with the bank association during the conflict. For this reason, Cristina’s congratulations to the banking union had a strong political meaning: it meant a wink for her allied unions to request increases above the official guideline, which in fact was openly challenging Guzmán and Moroni.
Sergio Palazzo, leader of the banking union, was part of the Peronist dialogue table after announcing a strike due to a salary conflict
A year later, history seems to repeat itself. In Kirchnerism, the version circulates that the Government – now led by Sergio Massa and Raquel “Kelly” Olmos– asked the big banks to stay as close as possible to the official guideline when negotiating, so as not to send a negative signal to the rest of the market.
What Massa wants is that the big unions abide by a 60% salary guidelineand that if inflation then exceeds those numbers -as all the economists’ projections say it will happen- then during the second semester, revisions and compensatory increases may be applied.
But Kirchnerism does not hide its skepticism and used the poverty data – published in March and September – to mark the new social phenomenon of “wage earners below the poverty line.” The statistics show that three out of 10 workers do not earn enough to pay for the basic food basket, which today costs $163,539 for a household with two adults and two minors. To make matters worse, the inflation of this basic basket is accelerating more than average: in January it had a monthly rise of 7.2%, with which it accumulates an annual variation of 109.8%, compared to 98.8% of the CPI.
Wages: the wage guideline in dispute
It is within this framework that the question arises of how far Kirchnerism will be willing to accompany Minister Massa before a divergence over the salary issue is openly raised.
And everything suggests that this moment could be much closer than it seems. After a meeting of Buenos Aires union leaders with maximum kirchner -president of the PJ in the province-, there were leaders who once again raised the demand for a fixed-sum increase by decree.
That had been one of the biggest points of contention last year, with Massa and the Labor Ministry clearly opposing. At that time, Kirchnerism unsuccessfully put forward the argument that at a time of very high inflation the parity mechanism was not enough to prevent wage erosion. And that, consequently, the Government had to adopt a much more interventionist position, in which increases were set by decree.
The Peronism dialogue table made its debut on Thursday, amid pressure from Kirchnerism to change the management of the economy
The claim was made by Cristina Kirchner herself, for whom the fact that business balance sheets are showing higher earnings percentages than inflation is proof that a salary increase is feasible without implying a need to transfer costs to prices.
The idea of a general increase by decree was dismissed out of hand by Massa. And what came out around the end of the year was a pale version of the original claim -$24,000 in a one-time payment, limited to workers with incomes of less than $185,000- that, to top it off, various SME unions found it difficult to pay. .
The anger of the sectors related to Kirchnerism was undeniable, and was expressed in phrases like this one, Pablo Moyanoirritated by the delay in the measure: “They have been studying it for six months now. It annoys you a bit, because where the field threatens I will not export, he runs out and gives him the soybean dollar.”
Moyano was, on the other hand, one of the first to reject the 60% guideline for joint negotiations, a position in which he was also accompanied by CGT leaders who usually try not to stray from the government’s postulates.
Salaries rise: the clashes begin
Now, while Peronism tries to unify criteria to reach the electoral contest with chances, the Albertista sector, in charge of the management, is already sending its signals in the sense that it is not possible to think of injections of money that imply a cost fiscal.
This was made known by the vice minister gabriel rubinstein, who said that the continuation of the downward path in the deficit was the guarantee that there would not be financial turbulence. In other words, there would be no room for another “Plan Platita.”
Massa wants the parities to respect the official reference of 60%, an objective that generates disagreements with Kirchnerism
These are data that suggest an inevitable crash. What the extensive salary debate last year revealed is that, beyond fiscal limitations or the difficulties faced by companies in being able to give raises, there was a fundamental philosophical difference: whether the salary should continue to be a free negotiation – with the unions as protagonists of the sectoral agreements – or if in crisis circumstances it justified the intervention of the Government, as a guarantor of sustaining purchasing power.
And it is a debate that, already in the heat of an electoral campaign, can become explosive. For now, it is rethinking the need for an intervention government on salary levels.
“It must be observed that in the salary recompositions in industrial sectors they are at 150 thousand pesos of average salary, that implies that the joint discussion is not enough. There must be a push from the State as there was at the end of the year with the criteria that there was to have a salary base of 185 thousand pesos”said the general secretary of the Buenos Aires Graphic Federation, Hector Amichettiafter the union meeting with Máximo Kirchner.
On the other hand, after another meeting held at the presidential residence in Olivos, the tense dialogue between Alberto Fernandez and the most rebellious union sector, led by trucker Pablo Moyano. The trade unionists expressed their concern after the publication of the inflation data for January and raised the need for new measures to reinforce incomein the form of a complementary salary bonus.
However, the President did not give certainty about the possibility of addressing that claim. Instead, he did make it clear that he will maintain his aspiration to run for re-election.
Until now, Massa has argued for the need to maintain wage caution, in terms very similar to those given by Guzmán: “The worst enemy of wages is inflation. You can have a parity that can have the number you want, but if the inflation is above, so our main responsibility is to lower inflation so that wages beat inflation and recover purchasing power,” he said in an interview.
Pablo Moyano, leader of the trucking union, has already warned that he will not accept “ceilings” suggested by the Government in the salary negotiation
And, even more explicit, Minister Olmos spoke about the danger of the nominal price and wage race: “There is an awareness of the union sectors that of some business sectors that, due to their ability to concentrate, often agree to increase the nominal value, turn around and return it to a price”he admitted.
Olmos’ phrase is Doubly irritating for Kirchnerism: first, because it raises the salary argument as a possible inflationary factor; and second, because it tacitly accepts that the Government does not consider that it can take actions to prevent this automatic transfer of labor costs to the prices of products and services. In other words, it contradicts Cristina’s claim about the need to intervene in the profit margins of large companies.
Disturbing numbers
As a background to this cyclical debate, official data on wages in 2022 have just been released. Information from INDEC indicates that in the face of inflation that closed at 94.8%, wages had risen 90.4%.
Of course, this figure actually hides a much greater loss, because the measurement is carried out “between ends”, which implies that it does not capture the wage erosion that occurs between each adjustment period, and that it is greater the more accelerated is the evolution of prices.
On the other hand, the great dispersion of situations around salary was evident: it was confirmed that the state sector was the one that best defended itself against inflation, with increases that totaled 99.4%, while the private sector only reached a 93.8%. And the informal sector -which concentrates more than a third of the workers- goes a long way against prices: He barely saw his income grow by 65.4%.
For Peronism, this is a disturbing fact: it is precisely among workers in the informal sector where he had cemented his base of electoral support in 2019. And he fears that it is there where vote leakage could occur in this year’s elections.
