The biggest blow to the employment rights since the dictatorship

[MilHojas]

Workers in Argentina face the biggest blow to their employment rights since the military dictatorship of the 1970s

The protests against Javier Milei have lready begun.

theconversation.com

 

[Musicman]

The unions and are a huge barrier to job creation and investment in business in Argentina.

 

[mikic007]

The unions and are a huge barrier to job creation and investment in business in Argentina.

Maybe, but employee rights are way below of most EU countries, where strangely this barrier isn't posing much of a problem. We won't pretend basic stuff Argentina has is preventing job creation and investments, that's first class bullshit. I guess Bangladesh is example Argentina should follow?

 

[antipodean]

Again, what rights exactly? What policies exactly?
A lot of headlines and war cries but little actual substance.

Freedom to choose to be part of (and most importantly, pay their hard earned money towards) a union or not?
Not having their health insurance costs driven up (or benefits watered down) by needing to have employer contributions go through an intermediary?
More consequences if they stop, you know, actually doing their job or doing it well?
Not allowing legitimate protest to blockade (eg use violence) against the companies that employ them and that need to continue making money to pay them?

I personally see biggest losers in this specific round of reforms as the unions and their bosses who are loosing their monopoly on violence and ability to put their hands into the pockets of every single Argentine worker en-blanco. Hence the resistance (which is laughable considering their silence for the last four years in which a massive chunk of workers have been subjected to slave wages and lives below the poverty line….)

 

[FrankPintor]

Maybe, but employee rights are way below of most EU countries, where strangely this barrier isn't posing much of a problem. We won't pretend basic stuff Argentina has is preventing job creation and investments, that's first class bullshit. I guess Bangladesh is example Argentina should follow?

I was amazed at how penalties for keeping employees off the books (i.e. employed "en negro") are to be eliminated. From the Buenos Aires Herald (https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/what-does-mileis-massive-presidential-decree-actually-say):

"Among other measures, the decree eliminates penalties for companies that fail to register their employees, distort their date of hire, or misrepresent their salaries. It also abolishes an article of the labor contracts law that requires a company to pay twice as much in compensation if it fires an employee who was unregistered".

Bangladesh here we come! (Actually, I may be insulting Bangladesh with this. Apologies if that's the case).

 

[Musicman]

Maybe, but employee rights are way below of most EU countries, where strangely this barrier isn't posing much of a problem. We won't pretend basic stuff Argentina has is preventing job creation and investments, that's first class bullshit. I guess Bangladesh is example Argentina should follow?

Nonsense - you are obviously not a business person. my company had to pull out of doing business in Argentina due to excess employee liability costs and excessive strikes. They were cutting their own throats - not very smart at all although I suspect their Union bosses still did ok regardless

 

[FrankPintor]

Nonsense - you are obviously not a business person. my company had to pull out of doing business in Argentina due to excess employee liability costs and excessive strikes. They were cutting their own throats - not very smart at all although I suspect their Union bosses still did ok regardless

Are you able to distinguish between eliminating excessive employment legislation, including excess employee liability costs, and creating an unregulated free for all which is what Milei's DNU aims to do?

When everyone is employed off the books and pays no tax, we'll see who's cut his own throat

 

[antipodean]

I guess Bangladesh is example Argentina should follow?

For more than 6.000.000 Argentine workers already long-since working en-negro at average wages actually pretty comparable to average wages in Bangladesh, I guess they are already there.

Take away the incentives for both the employee and employer to have a relationship “en-negro” and it simply looses its value proposition for both parts (It may come as a surprise to many, but the ones usually pushing to work en-negro are employees themselves who would rather take a cut of the money the employer would otherwise pay to the unions and state pension fund on their behalf or ask for half en-blanco and the other half in an envelope at the end of the month to improve their net incomes…. And once employers who have gone black, with current laws, they can never go back in all practical terms unless they are very rich and afford to pay for the Pandora’s box full of surprises that it opens).

What amazes me is that unions have never done anything about employment in negro nor those workers legitimate rights and instead constantly derail any effort from any angle to actually formalize or equalize employment across the board nor have they delivered any actual results on this front in decades, and now suddenly they care? (presumably because they smell where the money to be made and dealing with employees of micro enterprises or “poor” companies are simply more trouble than it’s worth… meanwhile for “rich” companies they have no problem - literally - doing inspections only to tell the employer they need to replace the toaster oven in the break room with a microwave or they may face a walk-out).

 

[mikic007]

For more than 6.000.000 Argentine workers already long-since working en-negro at average wages actually pretty comparable to average wages in Bangladesh, I guess they are already there.

Take away the incentives for both the employee and employer to have a relationship “en-negro” and it simply looses its value proposition for both parts (It may come as a surprise to many, but the ones usually pushing to work en-negro are employees themselves who would rather take a cut of the money the employer would otherwise pay to the unions and state pension fund on their behalf or ask for half en-blanco and the other half in an envelope at the end of the month to improve their net incomes…. And once employers who have gone black, with current laws, they can never go back in all practical terms unless they are very rich and afford to pay for the Pandora’s box full of surprises that it opens).

What amazes me is that unions have never done anything about employment in negro nor those workers legitimate rights and instead constantly derail any effort from any angle to actually formalize or equalize employment across the board nor have they delivered any actual results on this front in decades, and now suddenly they care? (presumably because they smell where the money to be made and dealing with employees of micro enterprises or “poor” companies are simply more trouble than it’s worth… meanwhile for “rich” companies they have no problem - literally - doing inspections only to tell the employer they need to replace the toaster oven in the break room with a microwave or they may face a walk-out).

Somehow you mistake me for union guy, which I'm not. Have never been part of any union, in Argentina or elsewhere. I'm for strict implementation of already existing rules, work in black as the biggest task. You don't leave people to choose if to pay taxes or not, and you do that through punishment of companies, if they fail to comply. Imagine, how much money is missing in the budget, if 6 millions don't pay their share! Work in black is cáncer for society and should be harshly prosecuted.

Unions are no one's friend, they are basically mafia at that point in Argentina. They fight for themselves and that's it.

 

[antipodean]

Somehow you mistake me for union guy, which I'm not. Have never been part of any union, in Argentina or elsewhere. I'm for strict implementation of already existing rules, work in black as the biggest task. You don't leave people to choose if to pay taxes or not, and you do that through punishment of companies, if they fail to comply. Imagine, how much money is missing in the budget, if 6 millions don't pay their share! Work in black is cáncer for society and should be harshly prosecuted.

Unions are no one's friend, they are basically mafia at that point in Argentina. They fight for themselves and that's it.

Don't worry I don't take your words for that of a union guy.
But I do not think that blaming Milei or these specific reforms for the current (or near future) state of Argentine labor conditions or a Bangladesh-esque trajectory is fair or makes any sense at all.

Completely agree that there should be 6 million more tax payers in Argentina to pay for the whole fiesta!

The problem is one of pragmatism. Rules in Argentina don't work when people don't follow them because they have more to gain by not following them. As we see today. What good is it punishing only a company if employees are also part of the problem and complicit to covering up work en-negro making it difficult to identify and crack down on in practice (I'm saying this as an employer who has seen firsthand many potential employees turn down job offers simply because it is all en-blanco). That imbalanced approach is a sure-fire way to only increase the harm to the economy as if you burn the employers of over 6.000.000 informal workers (e.g. push many of these small businesses into bankruptcy, literally) you also burn their employees in a very brutal way, especially given the formal economy that is not exactly booming or able to suddenly absorb 6.000.000 workers.... Employment en-negro as much as being a cancer, it is also a pandora's box.

Therefore the only way around it is to give employees and employers alike less reasons to do it while also removing barriers to coming clean and changing their labour practices... otherwise it's just more of the same shit, different day.