2024-02-18 03:30:00
At the end of the week, the National Government announced that it had achieved, for the first time in 12 years, a month with a financial surplus. “The zero deficit is not negotiated,†was the slogan of the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo. In the preview, the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, confirmed the elimination of trust funds, which supported different activities in the interior of the country, for an amount of 2,000 million dollars.
Not spending more money than is collected is the slogan for the cost cuts that President Javier Milei continues to apply, as he had announced. It was he himself who highlighted a journalistic note on his social networks where it was commented that families who have saved dollars begin to sell them to be able to cover their expenses.
The situation, which is beginning to show signs of recession, is not exclusive for the public sector. The private sector is also beginning to suffer from the contraction in consumption, but with prices that continue to grow without a ceiling: January inflation was above 20% and the president warned that the next two months will be the most complex.
That is the context in which salaries will have to be negotiated in March and April when most of the joint ventures are opened. The first witness will be the teacher salary discussion that will seek to agree on a start of classes without strikes, something that appears very complex.
In the provinces, for example, In Neuquén the unions have already marked their position: they want to maintain an inflation updating scheme that in recent years guaranteed them excellent results. To the point that state salaries became one of the most competitive after the powerful oil industry, with its lighthouse in Vaca Muerta.
Governor Rolando Figueroa inherited an agreement that is six years old and that was barely postponed once, in the midst of the worst months of the pandemic. Furthermore, it is an agreement that includes, in an electoral drive by former governor Omar Gutiérrez, an early reduction of the Income Tax, which is covered, like the sector’s assets, with the State’s collection of taxes paid by the people of Neuquén.
Figueroa did not give any sign of moving forward with the issue of Profits, although it remains in force throughout the country, because he was one of the governors who supported keeping it unchanged when it was discussed in the Omnibus Law. But his government is showing signs of wanting to get the State out of an agreement where most of the proceeds go to the wage bill, without leaving funds for works or infrastructure, the weak point of the last 16 years of the Neuquén administrations.
The provincial public reality is certainly privileged in maintaining salaries with high purchasing power in the midst of the inflationary storm of recent years. Union leaders have gained strong support for supporting this agreement and because they never allowed us to discuss whether the effort made with public funds resulted in a higher quality service.
Figueroa has been showing efforts to rationalize state spending, but it will be necessary to see if he has the necessary political support to adjust the salary agreement to the new times and give the province something more than good state salaries.
The mirror is in the management of Alberto Weretilneck, from Rio Negro, obtained the approval of the unions to initially advance with a fixed-sum agreement, by exposing the reality of provincial accounts and the cut in national shipments. There were several joint ventures that agreed, temporarily, on fixed sums or percentages to mitigate the inflationary surge of recent months while they prepare for tougher discussions.
It is likely that a period of conflict will begin because, as is popularly said, prices travel by plane while salaries travel by bicycle. Milei’s last message was clear, she did not bring any proposal for an increase to the national salary council and kept the minimum salary frozen at 156 thousand pesos.
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