Argentine scholars renew strikes as wages dip below poverty line

Argentine university workers have renewed hostilities with the government of Javier Milei, staging a 48-hour strike in protest at salaries that are now 40 per cent lower in real terms than what they were when he took power.

Academics and administrative staff held the walkouts this week after the right-wing government again announced below-inflation salary increases of 1 per cent at the start of the year.

It marked the most significant action since two large demonstrations were held by students and professors in Buenos Aires in April and October last year.

While these forced the Milei administration to offer some more funding to universities amid its unprecedented austerity drive, the salaries of those who work in public institutions have been eclipsed by the country’s high levels of inflation.

The National Federation of University Teachers (Conadu) – one of the organisers of the strike – has estimated that between 65 and 70 per cent of university workers have salaries below the poverty line.

It would take a 40 per cent rise to return salaries to the level they were in December 2023, when Milei, a chainsaw-wielding libertarian who has close ties to Donald Trump and Elon Musk – shocked the world by winning the presidential election.

The strikes came as universities continued to wait for a higher education budget to be set for the 2025 fiscal year. The Executive Committee of the National Interuniversity Council (CIN) has said the delays are the “will” of the administration and have allowed it to continue with 2024 allocations with no “oversight”.

“Thus, the country lacks a roadmap to guarantee the economic and financial functioning of its institutions,” a CIN statement said.

The body said that currently the budget allocated to the system covered barely 50 per cent of its costs, with student scholarships frozen since August 2024 and research the victim of a “drastic reduction in resources”.

Marcelo Rabossi, a professor in the School of Government at Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, said the lack of investment in university infrastructure in particular was “worrying”.

But, he said, there was little sign of the government listening to the claims of the universities.

Instead, according to Rabossi, the continued cuts were more likely to force researchers to seek alternative funding, which may exacerbate a migration of faculty to the private sector or abroad.

Alongside the fresh wave of strikes, the university teachers’ unions have formed links with other protest groups within Argentina, particularly pensioners, who have been staging regular rallies to secure better retirement benefits.

One of these demonstrations turned violent earlier this month after football fans came out in support and were met by riot police wielding water cannon and rubber bullets.

Rabossi said the episode showed the many demands on the public purse and warned that the plight of universities risked getting lost in the wider upheavals.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com