In Argentina, the anger built up for months against austerity and authoritarianism imposed by far-right president Javier Milei was met with a spectacular national strike on Thursday. The strike was widely observed across sectors and the country, despite pressure from the government and the bosses that were trying to intimidate workers.

The Argentinian mainstream media are now trying to downplay the impact of the strike. Despite the fact that the leadership of the union federation CGT did not organize the action from below, the strike shut down trains, subways, schools, hospitals, and industrial sectors across the country, and more than 300 flights were canceled. It was much stronger than many imagined, and expressed the anger of millions of workers. The action would have been even stronger if the driver’s union, the UTA, hadn’t effectively boycotted the strike. 

For months now, every Wednesday, pensioners and the Left, in particular the PTS-FIT, have been tenaciously mobilizing in front of the national congress against Milei’s austerity. For many weeks, the pensioners have resisted violent police repression with the support of family members, neighbors and PTS-FIT congressmen such as Myryam Bregman, Christian Castillo, Nicolás del Caño, and Andrea D’Atri. As the national deputy from the PTS-FIT Chistian Castillo said from the march in solidarity with the retired on Wednesday: “We, the Left, are with the retired, while this government is on the side of the International Monetary Fund.”

The brutal police repression has exacerbated the discontent against the government, and the pensioners have become a symbol of resistance against Milei nationwide. On Wednesday, for the first time, unions were part of the demonstrations bringing thousands to the streets. The following day, the strike took place, sending a strong message to the president and the ruling class. 

The CGT bureaucracy had been in a long truce with the government since last year, when they supported one of Milei’s labor reforms and then let the government’s far-right attacks pass without a fight. However, the strength from below and the increasing discontent is overwhelming the leadership of the unions. The willingness of the country’s working class fight, including the student movement and the feminist movement, has been demonstrated in large mass actions like on February 1 against homophobia, transphobia, and Milei’s hateful speech at the Davos summit on January 21. On March 8, International Women’s Day, hundreds of thousands took to the streets, again led by the powerful feminist movement including the socialist feminist organization Bread and Roses, led by D’Atri. On March 24, the anniversary of the 1976 U.S.-backed coup that led to the forced disappearance of 30,000 activists, hundred of thousands took the streets again chanting, “Nunca más” (“Never again”), challenging the narrative of Milei’s government that denies the genocide while seeking for the perpetrators to be acquitted. 

Yesterday’s national strike was a radicalization of the discontent and the resistance against the Far Right, and it hit the country and economy with full force.

By Wednesday night, airport and airline workers had already joined the strike. Almost simultaneously, the production lines of several factories were shut down: 90 percent of the labor force at Ford in Pacheco, a northern suburban community a few hours from Buenos Aires, went on strike. All over the country, production stoppages were reported in auto factories, metallurgical plants, manufacturing plants, and even big corporations such as Coca Cola were paralyzed. Trains stopped running at midnight, as did the subways. 

The biggest organizer of the strike was not the CGT — far from it. It was the rank and file, moved by the anger felt over these 11 months of truce, frozen wages, layoffs, and the despotism of the bosses encouraged by a right-wing government and an opposition that works as an accomplice.

The soul and the spirit of the strike was injected by the pensioners. The center-left Peronist opposition, meanwhile, was focused on their internal elections instead of mobilizing and supporting the strike. They have been leaning on a wait-and-see strategy to fight the Far Right and compromising the rights of the working class and the oppressed in Congress — much like the Democrats in the U.S. are doing with Donald Trump’s agenda.

Thursday’s demonstration of force shows that workers have the strength to defeat Milei and the bosses’ plans. However, in order to unleash the full energy of the working class, these actions can’t stop here — unions must be forced to keep up with the struggle, and there must be full unity between the working class oppressed. 

Javier Milei is an enemy of the working class and oppressed, and a friend of the super rich and Donald Trump. But organized and unorganized workers, the feminist movement, the student movement, and the indigenous communities in the Argentinian north resisting extractivism and capitalist greed can defeat him and his far-right agenda. Having socialist representatives in Congress denouncing Milei and the capitalist in Congress and on the streets, independently of the parties in power, is an asset of this working-class resistance against the administration.

Originally published in Spanish on April 10 in La Izquierda Diario