Argentina has held its second general strike in the past five months since President Javier Milei has been in power.
In the capital, Buenos Aires, public transportation was stopped for about three million passengers a day, schools, banks and gas stations were closed, and municipal companies did not collect garbage.
Unions have called a 24-hour protest strike in support of decent wages for Argentines struggling with a severe economic crisis. Annual inflation reaches 300 percent, and every second resident lives in poverty.
About 400 flights were canceled on Thursday, affecting about 70,000 passengers, according to ALTA, the Latin American airline association.
The port of Rosario, to which 80 percent of Argentina’s agricultural products are exported, has been crippled.
After winning the election last November, Milei promised to eliminate Argentina’s budget deficit and reduce inflation.
So far, he has cut subsidies for transport, gasoline and energy, among other things, and laid off thousands of civil servants.
The CGT union accuses him of introducing austerity measures that hit the poor and pensioners. The strike was fully expected due to drastic austerity measures. The largest so far was on April 23, when about a million people protested against funding cuts to public universities.
His measures saw monthly inflation fall from 25 percent last December to nine percent in April, and Milei last month boasted of Argentina’s first quarterly budget surplus in 16 years, AA writes.
Photo: Anadolu Agency
