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Argentina (AP) — After 11 months in office, Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei has fulfilled his flagship pledge to eliminate the country’s monumental deficits by shrinking the public payroll, slashing subsidies and suppressing already low wages of state workers.
The austerity has spawned misery. But with the country’s left-wing opposition in disarray after delivering the economic disaster that Milei inherited, Argentina hasn’t seen the kind of widespread social unrest that has characterized past economic crises.
That could change. The country’s teachers are fed up.
Milei’s recent veto of a bill boosting spending on university budgets struck a collective nerve in a nation that long has considered free education a critical engine of social progress, drawing the broadest demonstrations since the libertarian leader took office.
Milei’s recent veto of a bill to increase university funding has sparked the largest protests since his election, as teachers and students demand raises to offset Argentina’s high inflation and protect the tradition of free public education. Professors, suffering from lower pay,… pic.twitter.com/0SUhBUFjWw
— CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) October 31, 2024
Last week’s open-air classes held in Plaza de Mayo, the main square home to government headquarters, marked the latest in a new wave of protests supporting public universities that has gripped Argentina over the past month. Students are taking over college campuses in the coming days ahead of another mass protest.
Here’s a look at what students are protesting and what it means for Milei’s effort to transform crisis-prone Argentina into an economic success story.
What do protesters want?
Professors and non-teaching staff at public universities across Argentina are demanding a pay raise to compensate for sky-high inflation that they say has shrunk their purchasing power by 60% this year.
After a student-led march mobilized a half-million protesters in April, Milei’s government compensated universities for operational costs but not for teachers’ salaries.
The average salary of an associate professor is now $320 per month. For teaching assistants, it’s just $120 a month.
The university funding bill that Milei vetoed would have increased staff salaries to make up for 2024 annual inflation — which now tops 200% — and adjusted them for inflation going forward.
Even if Milei’s drastic measures have recently dragged month-on-month inflation below 5%, the number of Argentines in poverty has swelled to more than 50%.
The public university system hasn’t seen this kind of budget shortfall since 2004, according to the Civil Association for Equality and Justice, an Argentine nonprofit.
“Our living conditions have visibly worsened,” said Nicolas Jose Lavagnino, a researcher in the philosophy of biology at Conicet, Argentina’s leading research body that reported losing 250 scientists this year due to budget cuts.
