On February 27, President Javier Milei’s labor reform was passed by the Argentinian Congress. The reform—leveraged through backroom legislative deals and opposed massively in the streets —is a sweeping rollback of Argentina’s historic labor rights and certain to face fierce resistance in the months ahead.
During the first Senate discussion of the bill, on February 11, the park in front of Congress was filled with people seething with anger. After the police set off tear gas, many union leaders withdrew from the square, though a large part of their rank and file decided to stay.
“I thought about what I would tell my son when he asked me what I did the day the reform was passed,” said Mariano Gimenez, a member of the Metalworker’s Union. He decided his place was in the square. Like many workers, young people, and the left organizations on the front lines, Mariano remained, resisting in the face of harsh repression. Javier Milei’s government presents itself as the exemplary disciple of Washington and the IMF, imposing discipline on the working class. The labor reform—portrayed by the government as a “modernization” aimed at boosting formal employment by curbing obstacles to hiring—would roll back the clock on worker’s rights by a century. However, more than modernization, it is a massive attack on the historical rights of the Argentine working class: the long-held desire of the country’s business class.
Rolling Back 100 Years of Workers’ Rights
Argentina’s new labor law is above all an attack on the working class, resetting the labor-capital relationship in favor of the business class. It also violates articles of the Constitution and principles of international treaties to which the country adheres by taking away rights retroactively.
The law allows for increased scheduling flexibility for employers and extended workdays of up to 12 hours, largely eliminating overtime pay and the 8-hour work day, which has been in place since 1929. It also incorporates the concept of “dynamic wages,” where a portion of wages is made up of bonuses or productivity incentives that can be paid over several months without formally being part of a worker’s salary—thus, not considered for retirement or severance purposes—and can be taken away at any time. It also allows the splitting of vacation time according to employers’ needs.
Argentina’s sweeping labor reform, heavily resisted in the streets, is set to roll back nearly a century of hard-fought rights.
In addition, the calculation of severance pay changes. It would no longer be calculated based on the highest income of the last 12 months including bonuses but rather on the base salary, which in most cases is much lower than actual take-home pay. The law also proposes the creation of a Fondo de Asistencia Laboral (Workers’ Assistance Fund) for severance pay funded with monthly employer contributions—funds that until now went to social security. This fund would be managed by financial and insurance entities, increasing risk for workers’ social protection and granting further profits to elites.
The reform also attacks collective bargaining rights and workers’ organization by favoring company-level agreements over industry or sector-wide agreements, historically more common in Argentina. It also undermines the right to strike by classifying certain sectors, such as education, as “essential services” that must guarantee that 75 percent of their activity continues in the event of a strike.
The reform also aims to dismantle hard-won gains of the welfare state. In Argentina, as in many Latin American countries, access to healthcare and retirement pensions is tied to formal employment, while informal workers—who make up a growing 35-40 percent of the workforce—lack these benefits. Because the reform makes it easier for employers to hire informal workers, it significantly increases the percentage of Argentines who do not have access to quality healthcare, retirement pensions, and other social benefits.
A Protracted Crisis
Support for the reform needs to be understood in the context of widespread despair following years of economic stagnation. “I think [the reform] benefits employers and, in some ways, workers, although it also hurts workers in other ways. But the reform won’t affect me; I think what’s important is to stimulate the economy,” said Nicolás Soria, a self-employed worker who voted for Milei in 2023.
A February survey published by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg revealed that public opinion on labor reform was divided. 46 percent of respondents considered it necessary, while 49 percent did not. However, when examining the specific provisions in the reform, the picture changes. 71 percent opposed calculating severance pay without including bonuses and other incentives, and 60 percent opposed more flexible work schedules. 55 percent believed that the labor reform would increase job insecurity; 59 percent said that it would reduce workers’ rights. Selene, a young high school student, expressed this widespread sentiment thus “I’m completely against it. It’s exploitation; it only benefits business owners. It’s going to affect my parents, and in the future, me”.
Milei won the 2023 elections by running on a platform of drastically cutting public spending, eliminating ministries, and reducing labor costs, with the expectation that this would attract investment and revive the economy. His support is largely explained by the immense rejection of the ruling parties of the 10 previous years. Although supposedly at opposite ends of the political spectrum—Kirchnerism brandishing a rhetoric of an “inclusive state” and Mauricio Macri’s pro-market narrative—both governments oversaw the deterioration of living conditions, a stagnant economy, and runaway inflation.
Since Milei took office, he has implemented a textbook case of neoliberal shock therapy. Total public spending dropped by 30 percent in the first year, 13 government ministries were eliminated, public infrastructure work was suspended, and the health, education, and science sectors were subjected to deep cuts, though not without resistance. Workers at the Garrahan children’s hospital—a national symbol of free quality healthcare— won a 61 percent wages increase in November 2025, and massive national demonstrations successfully defended university budgets in late 2024 and mid-2025.
The main achievement of the Milei administration is to have brought inflation under control, going from 25 percent per month in December, 2023, to 2.5 per month, though in the last months it has risen again. Even still, Milei’s economic policy has increased poverty and unemployment (300,000 formal jobs were lost), and drastically reduced the purchasing power of working people. For many analysts, this is a powder keg that can blow up any time.
A Friendly Opposition in Congress, Popular Resistance on the Streets
To pass Congress, Milei’s reform depended upon support from other political parties. It passed the Senate first on February 11, and was finally and was approved on Febuary 27 after accepting changes introduced in the House (Cámara de Diputados). Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, does not hold enough seats in Congress to pass legislation on its own, so it relied on the support of other political blocs: Propuesta Republicana (PRO), Unión Cívica Radical (UCR), sectors of Peronism and provincial parties and coalitions.
These sectors have at various times partnered with Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party to help implement his agenda, often doing so in exchange for kickbacks like increased provincial funding. This “friendly opposition” even includes some Peronist representatives who claim to be the main opposition to the government, a staggering betrayal that saw members of the same coalition denounce those who voted in favor of the reform as “traitors”.
Myriam Bregman of the Left Front rebuffed this viewpoint during a debate: “When political conduct is repeated, when those from Tucumán and other provinces, [who] were with Milei before the October elections and are again afterwards, [this is] reiteration and recidivism … Why are they traitors? They’re scoundrels!” The Left Front has garnered widespread recognition, even among Peronist voters disappointed with the role of some of its leaders.
These “opposition” legislators were not the only ones that helped get the bill passed. The increasingly discredited labor federation Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), the country’s largest trade federation, played its part by refusing to call for decisive nation-wide actions. In the streets, people chanted “adónde está, que no se ve, esa traidora CGT?” (“Where is it, we can’t see it, the traitorous CGT?”). Meanwhile, the government excluded points from the bill that affected union financing, thereby protecting the leadership’s interests and securing a half-hearted response.
On February 11, sectors of the working class and the organized Left took to the streets, battling state repression.
Lacking a serious battle plan, the CGT first called for protests without a strike. Then, to blow off steam, they called a general strike without mobilization, despite knowing that a mass mobilization of striking workers across the country would exert significantly more pressure on the government and legislators. However, widespread discontent with the reform among working people found other forms of expression.
On February 11, sectors of the working class and the organized Left took to the streets, battling state repression. A Zentrix poll conducted around the time of the second legislative session on February 19 found massive support for the strike: 71.9 percent of respondents were in favor. The strike was imposed on the leadership by the rank and file, and some sectors of workers took matters into their own hands, organizing roadblocks and pickets in various parts of the country. When the law was finally passed on February 27, the CGT was silent. It was the organized Left and unions not aligned with the CGT that struck and marched in Buenos Aires.
The Conflict Ahead
Though the labor reform was approved, legislative victories do not equate to social consensus. As the government succeeds in passing laws through parliamentary alliances, the erosion of its legitimacy deepens in broad sectors of the population. In parallel, as the Peronist party and the union leadership show they are not up to the task to resist Milei’s onslaught, their capacity to channel or contain social unrest also wanes.
Congressman Nicolás del Caño of the Left Front warned that “the government is passing this law thanks to a sector of Peronism that gave them the votes in Congress and the complicit bureaucracy of the CGT, which refused to organize a serious plan of action to overturn it.” He added that “the Argentine working class has shown enormous combativeness and creativity in struggle, and it is not defeated.” The reform has been approved, but “implementing it will not be easy,” he said. “There will be struggles in workplaces and beyond.”
Del Caño’s warning of ongoing militancy has been borne out by recent worker actions, including a massive teachers’ strike and the ongoing occupation of a recently-closed tire factory. As the long history of Argentine worker resistance demonstrates, more is surely on the horizon.
Juan Cruz Ferre is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rowan University. His latest book, The Political Economy of Welfare in Latin America: Universalism Deferred, offers a critical assessment of social policy in Latin America in the twenty-first century.
Cecilia Garcilazo is a high school teacher of Sociology and freelance journalist in La Plata, Argentina. She does research on public opinion and electoral politics.