CLATE President Julio Fuentes expressed the stance of that regional trade union organization at a public hearing, in which legislators, union leaders, and labor lawyers from Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Turkiye, Paraguay, and Argentina participated.

Fuentes warned in his address, “This bill seeks to weaken the Argentine labor movement. We must be firm in rejecting this reform, which will not be good for anyone.

It will not be good for formal workers, nor for those currently in the informal sector, nor for small and medium-sized businesses.”

The regional union leader pointed out that the proponents of this reform “come for our social security system and the union-run social works, which are the most important self-managed system on the continent.”

He stated, “Twenty-three million Argentinians currently have health coverage through social security organizations. For them, that is a huge business to weaken the union movement and seize these rights that have taken us years of work and effort to achieve.”

jdt/iff/oda/mh