The Argentine Congress is set to begin extraordinary sessions in February with a full docket. Among the bills set to be debated are changes to the Glaciers Law, the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility, and the recently signed EU-Mercosur agreement. The sessions are set to be a test for the government’s legislative muscle, as it intends to pass all of them in one month.

The most awaited bill, however, is President Javier Milei’s ambitious labor reform, which is slated for a Senate vote on February 11.

Dubbed the “Labor Modernization Act,” it was drafted by Deregulation and State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger.

At first glance, it reads like a bill tailor-made for companies: curbs on the right to strike, more flexible working hours, and stricter requirements for leave, as well as limits on union power, among other measures.

Faced with such sweeping changes, unions came out against it. Less predictable, however, were the objections raised by the other side. While many business associations welcomed the initiative, a slew of heavyweight players have voiced concerns over key provisions of the bill.

The objections, which center around five articles, are based on the claim that instead of fixing existing problems, they will instead create new ones.

“[These articles] create anarchy in a system that is currently orderly. In other words, you bring in a problem where none exists,” said Juan Pablo Diab, legal adviser to the Argentine Confederation of Medium-Sized Enterprises (CAME), regarding the articles in contention. CAME is a business federation representing more than 400,000 small and medium-sized enterprises.

The protesting parties are not sitting still. On January 7, CAME — together with the Argentine Chamber of Commerce (CAC) and the Argentine Association of Metallurgical Industrialists (Adimra) — sent a letter to Vice President Victoria Villarruel and senators from all political parties, urgently requesting that........

© Buenos Aires Herald