ARGENTINA: Middle Class Shuns Former Ally, the Unemployed

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 19 2004 (IPS) - The recovery of Argentina’s economy has turned the middle class against its former allies in demanding political change: the movement of unemployed workers, whose roadblocks across the country Thursday failed to win many friends.

Traffic was cut off for seven hours at around 100 locations around Argentina and on the main access routes to Buenos Aires.

The Independent Movement of the Retired and Unemployed, the National ‘Piquetero’ Movement and other smaller groups that make up the "hard-line" segment of the unemployed movement had mobilised to set up the roadblocks, their trademark mode of protest.

These organisations within the ‘piquetero’ movement – the name refers to their blockading of streets and highways in large groups – came out to protest the government’s failure to deliver the benefits promised to 250,000 unemployed persons, out of a total of two million, and against the proposed labour law reform.

But the socio-political climate today is not what it was in late 2001, when social upheaval cut across class definitions and drove Fernando de la Rúa to resign from the presidency.

It was evident Thursday that the middle-class sector is fed up with the piquetero protests, which nevertheless ended without incident amidst heavy police presence.

Gone are the days in which profound economic crisis prompted a massive march of unemployed workers that was received in Buenos Aires with applause and tears by the residents of mostly middle-class neighbourhoods.

In early 2002, the "hosts" in the capital had water to drink and food to eat for the marchers who had come from all over the country.

"Piquetero and pot-banging, it’s all the same fight," they shouted in their protests, referring to the spontaneous and seemingly continual clamour of middle-class residents beating pots and pans to demand action against the deep recession begun in the late 1990s.

They called for policies that would prevent them from sliding into poverty, as happened to more than 50 percent of the 37 million Argentines as a result of the economic and financial crisis.

Now it seems the prevailing mood is one of repudiation, evidenced by the distribution of an e-mail message convening a protest of blackouts and car-horns next Wednesday against the piqueteros.

In the wake of De la Rúa’s resignation in December 2001, through the government of Eduardo Duhalde, and in particular since President Néstor Kirchner, the Argentine economy has recuperated some vigour.

In 2003, growth returned, reaching 8.4 percent, and unemployment fell from 21.4 percent of the economically active population to 14.3 percent. The attempt to stanch widespread poverty came in the form of monthly subsidies to unemployed heads of households with children. It is this benefit that Thursday’s protests focused on, demanding payment as millions remain in poverty.

The middle-income sectors, which during the worst of the crisis had supported the unemployed in protests against the banks that had frozen their savings and pushing for De la Rúa’s resignation, now reject the most radical among the piqueteros, who say they refuse to leave the streets until each and every one of their demands are met.

But the piquetero movement itself has shown weak spots in recent months. There has been infighting between those who want to continue the mobilisations and roadblocks and those who have opted to cut back on protests and wait to see if the economic reactivation will bring its own benefits.

The more moderate groups, which are more likely to negotiate with the government, include the Federación de Tierra y Vivienda (Land and Housing Federation), Corriente Clasista y Combativa (Combative and Classist Current) and Barrios de Pie (Neighbourhoods on their Feet).

Today, business owners complain because the piquetero roadblocks interrupt traffic and are cutting into sales, and there are workers who do not even want to hear mention of the unemployed.

"The might want to work but they’re going to put us on the street," said an irate employee of a phone centre in San Isidro, in the Buenos Aires outskirts, worried she might lose her job for arriving late to work because of the roadblock on the Pan-American highway.

According to a survey by pollster Graciela Romer, in June 2001 just 15 percent of respondents said the De la Rúa government should "stand firm and prevent the piqueteros from blocking traffic." By December 2003, the percentage calling for a firm hand had risen to 51.

In the two polls, the proportion who suggested "negotiating" with the piqueteros fell from 81 to 42 percent. And the respondents who considered the unemployed movement’s demands legitimate dropped from 56 to 33 percent in that period.

In Córdoba province, "we choose to carry a shovel in the car and we wave it out the window when we approach a piquetero roadblock," said a caller on a radio programme in Buenos Aires.

The unemployed constitute a "leftover population" that refuses to lose visibility, according to sociologist Maristella Svampa, author of a book about the experience of the piquetero organisations.

"They are on the outside, they don’t occupy any specific space, and that is why they block the roads," she wrote.

Svampa notes that the piquetero phenomenon dates back to 1996, originating in the southern province of Neuquén amongst former workers of the now-privatised oil company Yacimiento Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF). They set up roadblocks to protest the lack of jobs.

Now, in contrast, most of the piqueteros are unemployed people who have not been formally employed.

Interviews conducted during a tour of the roadblocks set up by the more radical of the piquetero groups, today consisting mostly of women, young adults and adolescents, indicate that few have worked a steady job.

Roadblocks were set up Thursday in and around Buenos Aires, and in two other populous cities, Córdoba and Santa Fe. Blockades on national highways were reported throughout the country.

Despite fears of disturbances caused by demonstrators, police crackdowns, or a combination of the two, the day of protest took place in relative calm.

But some of the movement’s leaders admit that the roadblocks are leading to too many complaints and potential backlash from the middle class, who accuse them of "laying siege" to the cities. The activists say they are beginning to consider other modes of protest.

Speaking on behalf of the Kirchner government, Cabinet chief Alberto Rodríguez said the piqueteros "should realise that they are generating a strong feeling of rejection among the population," especially after recent protests in which there was violence that was not the result of by police intervention.

In December, a small explosive injured some 20 piqueteros during a protest in the Plaza de Mayo, across from the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. Last Friday, a protester taking part in a roadblock hit a taxi driver and then smashed the vehicle with a club.

The incident, caught by television cameras, prompted debate within the piquetero groups. That day’s demonstration ended the hunger strike at the Labour Ministry in protest against the reduced number of subsidies being distributed to the unemployed.

Leftist leader Vilma Ripoll, who took part in Thursday’s protests, told IPS that the government refuses to recognise that it let 250,000 subsidies lapse because of demands by the International Monetary Fund, and not because the recipients had found work.

"Labour Minister Carlos Tomada told us that there are 900,000 people on the waiting list for subsidies, which means that if there were really 250,000 people who found jobs, those funds should be shifted to the people on the list," said Ripoll, who until December was a local legislator for the United Left party.

Ripoll admitted that there has been a "distancing" between the middle class and the piqueteros that was not so evident in the past. "When the middle class was a victim of the neoliberal economic model, there was a ‘romance’ with the piqueteros, but that ended when their demands began to be met," she said.

The blame for this disaffection, she said, lies not with the middle class but with the government, which should ask for patience from those who complain about the roadblocks that prevent them from getting to work on time.