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ARGENTINA: ‘Piquetero’ Groups Take Chunk Out of Social Assistance Payments

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 22 2005 (IPS) - Rain or shine, Soledad, with her toddler in her arms, never misses a roadblock or “piquete” – but not because she is fanatically devoted to the protests staged by the movement of unemployed workers to which she belongs.

The “piquetes” or picket lines actually form part of the duties she must fulfil to continue receiving a small monthly stipend that the Argentine state grants to poor, unemployed workers.

“I do it for him,” she told IPS, with a nod towards her son, who will soon turn three. “I go because I have to, because I need that money. I would prefer to find a job as a cook, but this is all I have. If I don’t take part in the piquetes, I’ll lose my subsidy, and would have to go out and beg.”

Soledad, 21, who preferred not to give her last name, lives in La Cava, a “villa miseria” (slum) on the north side of Greater Buenos Aires.

In 2003 she became involved in community organising work with the Movimiento Barrios de Pie (roughly “neighbourhoods on their feet movement”), and took part in piquetes with that group of unemployed workers until she was able to win a place on the government welfare programme list, allowing her to receive the monthly subsidy.

“One time, the police came at me when I was nursing my son,” she said, pointing to the dangers of participating in the piquetes, which have been the targets of harsh crackdowns by the police.

Barrios de Pie is one of the numerous social organisations that emerged during the recession of the 1990s in response to the soaring unemployment in Argentina, which climbed above 20 percent.

Like other groups of unemployed protesters, Barrios de Pie draws attention to its grievances and demands by blocking traffic on highways and bridges. Many of its members depend for survival on the government stipend and the myriad community soup kitchens that have cropped up around this South American country in the past few years.

Barrios de Pie is one of the groups of “piqueteros” – as the unemployed protesters are known – with close ties to the government of centre-left President Néstor Kirchner. The Movement has a network of about 60,000 members, mainly women, around the country.

The Labour Ministry provides a monthly stipend of 150 pesos (some 52 dollars) to around 1.9 million unemployed people. In addition, 240,000 families receive a subsidy from the Ministry of Social Development.

But in some cases the payments are distributed through the piquetero organisations, which decide who is eligible, what community services they must engage in as part of the workfare scheme, and what share of the money they should hand over to the group that included them on its roster of beneficiaries.

In January 2004, after a year of participating in piquetes, Soledad was finally added to the Barrios de Pie list of beneficiaries. But the stipend is tiny, and her husband is unemployed too.

In Argentina, families with incomes below 344 pesos a month (118 dollars) are classified as “indigent” or extremely poor.

“Sometimes we eat and sometimes we don’t. But what worries me the most is my son, who used to be underweight,” she said.

Soledad cooks once a week for 150 children in the Barrios de Pie soup kitchen and works part-time in one of the areas into which the organisation’s activities are divided, which include communication, gender, education and health.

She doesn’t mind cooking, a task that she enjoys and would someday like to continue doing as paid employment. Nor does she mind taking part in other community work.

What she does mind is being forced to participate in the piquetes with her son, and having to hand over to Barrios de Pie 10 of the 150 pesos she receives every month.

“It makes you mad, because the 150 pesos are already way too little to live on, and that’s even more true if they shrink to 140,” said Soledad.

“And if you don’t fork over the money in the Thursday meeting, they come and ask you for it. But it doesn’t go towards buying food or other basic goods, because sometimes we don’t have enough meat or soap in the soup kitchen, and they say that money can’t be touched, it’s for the buses that take us to the piquetes,” she added.

According to the first of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community at the September 2000 United Nations General Assembly, the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty must be cut in half by 2015 (from 1990 levels).

But in Argentina, since the late 2001 economic, political and social collapse, the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty has doubled, and despite the assistance that the government now provides to the poorest of the poor, reaching the poverty MDG will be an uphill task.

During the 2001-2002 crisis, 54 percent of Argentina’s 37 million inhabitants fell below the poverty line, with 25 percent living in extreme poverty, unable to afford the “basic food basket”. Today, according to official figures, poverty affects 40 percent of the population and extreme poverty, 15 percent.

Soledad would like to find a job, to double the income she now receives. But she doesn’t know how to reach out beyond the network that keeps her tied to her neighbourhood and to the Barrios de Pie soup kitchen, where she cooks and where her son eats lunch every day.

In the meantime, she has begun to attend meetings on microcredit, in an effort to obtain a 100-peso (34 dollars) loan to buy clothes to sell in the neighbourhood, to earn some extra income.

It is common practice for the piquetero organisations to retain part of the small subsidies provided by the state, although the proportion “charged” by each group varies.

The Land and Housing Federation (FTV) takes 30 pesos (10 dollars) out of the 150-peso stipends it distributes. The group’s leader, Luis D’Elía, is a lawmaker in the province of Buenos Aires and supports the Kirchner administration.

The leftist Classist and Combative Current (CCC) takes five pesos (1.70 dollars) from its members.

And some organisations do not take any portion of the monthly payment.

“I get my subsidy through the FTV,” another resident of La Cava, a widow who did not even want to give her first name, told IPS. “I pay the 30 pesos because otherwise they would take me off the list,” she said.

She explained that her daughter-in-law receives assistance through the CCC, which “doesn’t charge very much, because the group doesn’t rent a bus to go to the piquetes.” Instead, the protesters go by train.

The non-governmental National Consultative Council, whose 1,800 provincial and municipal councils are charged with overseeing and monitoring the implementation of the assistance programmes for the unemployed, is aware that the piquetero groups take a share of the stipends.

The councils are made up of representatives of political, religious, business and social organisations, including delegates from the piquetero groups that administer the welfare plans.

In the councils, the representatives of the organisations of the unemployed reportedly block many initiatives aimed at ensuring that the stipends are distributed in a more transparent manner.

“There are organisations that have a captive population, administer the welfare payment plans, and use the poor for political ends,” said architect Cristina Resano, with the Catholic humanitarian organisation Caritas.

Resano, a member of the National Consultative Council, told IPS that “We detect irregularities and denounce them, but there is no follow-up later.”

In 2002, the government set up the Unemployed Heads of Household programme, financed by the World Bank, which distributes 150 pesos a month to the unemployed as part of a workfare and community service scheme.

But the plan does not in any way foresee that part of the payment is to be docked by the social organisations that help draw up the lists of beneficiaries and distribute the money.

The programme was originally supposed to cover all jobless heads of households in the country, but the registration period, during which the unemployed could apply for benefits, was closed after just two months.

At the start, the beneficiaries numbered two million, but that total has shrunk to 1.6 million.

In addition, the Labour Ministry has another cash assistance mechanism, the Community Employment Plans (PECs), which are also channelled through piquetero groups, to an additional 300,000 people.

The Ministry of Social Development, meanwhile, created the Families Plan, which since February has been providing payments to 240,000 mothers (150 pesos a month for families with up to three children, 175 for families with four, and 200 pesos for families with five children or more).

Unlike the other two programmes, the Families Plan is not a workfare scheme. However, the mothers must demonstrate that their children are up-to-date on vaccinations and check-ups, and that they attend school regularly.

Barrios de Pie is involved in a wide range of community services. But Soledad and other members complain about having to hand over part of their meagre stipend, even during a month when no piquetes were held, which meant no buses were hired to take them to the demonstrations.

Turning to the Consultative Council with their complaints has got them nowhere, however. Soledad’s mother-in-law, who receives a subsidy through the FTV, filed a claim with the Council to protest the “extortion”, but they told her there was nothing to be done, said Soledad.

In addition, people are afraid that if they make a fuss, they will be removed from the workfare lists.

The piquetero groups that administer the welfare schemes “have influence in the Labour Ministry,” said Resano. The leaders of the FTV and Barrios de Pie, for example, are “friends” of the government, and in these cases, the fear of being thrown out of the unemployment subsidy plans is well-founded, she maintained.

Since 2003, the national coordinator of Barrios de Pie, lawyer Jorge Ceballos, has held a high-level position in the Ministry of Social Development, which is pushing for the gradual replacement of the Unemployed Heads of Household programme with the Families Plan.

Ceballos stopped taking part in the piquetes after he was named national director of the Ministry’s Community Assistance programme, at a monthly salary of 4,200 pesos (1,443 dollars), much of which he reportedly hands over to the Movement. “I keep 1,300 pesos (446 dollars) for myself,” he says.

IPS made several attempts to interview Ceballos about the practice of retaining part of the beneficiaries’ stipends, but his staff said he was not available.

Resano pointed to other problems as well. For instance, the Unemployed Heads of Household programme equates poverty with unemployment, phenomena that do not always go hand in hand.

“Until recently we lacked the possibility of comparing information from different registries, and now we have found many irregularities,” she said.

For example, wives of judges and members of the military or police and unemployed husbands of schoolteachers are receiving the welfare payments, which are supposed to go to unemployed adults in charge of households that have no other source of income.

And in some municipalities, there are public employees who receive the Unemployed Heads of Household subsidy, as well as people who receive the payment in exchange for working for politicians, as if they were directly employed by the officials themselves.

In Resano’s view, it is “practically impossible” to stamp out political clientelism and patronage if the assistance programmes are not set up to cover everyone in need. When upper limits are set and many people are left out, extortion immediately begins to crop up, she argued.

However, the government is hard-pressed to come up with the resources to extend the assistance schemes to everyone in need.

“We are not at this point able to reopen the registration for the Unemployed Heads of Household plan,” to ensure universal coverage, Deputy Minister of Social Development Daniel Arroyo told IPS.

Although Arroyo admitted that he was not familiar with how the Labour Ministry operates when it comes to assigning the subsidies, he said the government has put rules in place to prevent irregularities.

For instance, a cash card that allows the beneficiaries to withdraw their payments from automatic teller machines has eliminated extortion by community leaders who used to accompany unemployed workers to cash their checks, in order to demand a portion, said the official.