CGT challenges part of Milei labour reform in court

The CGT, Argentina’s leading trade union federation, has filed an injunction before the courts challenging part of President Javier Milei’s labour reform, which was recently approved by Congress.

The Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) is asking for the reform’s implementation to be suspended until the jurisdiction responsible for handling labour complaints is reconsidered.

Argentina’s national labour courts are often criticised by sectors of the political and business community, which argue that they are biased and tend to rule mostly in favour of trade unions or workers bringing lawsuits.

In its filing, the CGT requests that cases remain under national labour jurisdiction and should not be transferred to the labour courts of Buenos Aires City.

The federation argues that the transfer of authority is aimed at the “annihilation of the National Labour Judiciary” in what it describes as a “retaliatory” action against judges who have issued rulings that “from certain viewpoints are not agreeable.”

The labour reform, criticised by the opposition and trade unions, reduces severance payments to workers, allows payments in kind (goods or services), limits the right to strike and permits working days of up to 12 hours without overtime pay, among other measures.

This is the CGT’s first legal challenge against President Milei’s “Labour Modernisation Law.” The case has been filed with Federal Administrative Litigation Court No. 7.

Its leaders had already warned that it would pursue a judicial strategy to challenge the reform. 

A second filing “will follow in another legal action that is still being prepared,” one of the lawyers working on the document told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The CGT is staking what political capital it has on halting the law through the courts. 

The State Lawyers’ Guild was the first to file a collective lawsuit against the law on Monday.

Last week, hundreds of people called out by the CGT marched across the country in rejection of the reform, with the largest demonstration taking place outside a courthouse in Buenos Aires.

Milei said the law aims to create “an environment that facilitates hiring, boosts investment and allows registered [or formal] employment to expand again.” According to government data, around 43 percent of the labour force works in the informal economy.

The law has been passed amid a downturn in industrial activity, with more than 21,000 companies closing over the past two years and around 300,000 jobs lost, according to trade union sources.

– TIMES/AFP/NA