While government Javier Miley Explains that the bill Repair work Ready and preparing to send the project to Congress, A A new study reveals social support for the majority To amend labor laws, but with Nuances in central points Such as contributions or union dues and changes to collective bargaining agreements.
For the case, Nearly seven in ten respondents agree that union fees are “voluntary” rather than mandatory, but when asked about collective agreements, more people want the current system to continue than those who support “per-company” agreements. They also favor the government, although nearly 64% said they had a “bad” image of unions.
Poll from zentrix consulting, The company carries out work mainly for the private sector of foreign and local trade and small and medium enterprises. The study introduced a specificity: to ensure the representativeness of the sample, it first investigated respondents’ vote in 2023 and showed that more than half (54.3%) voted for Miley in 2023 and just under (45.7%) for Sergio Massa’s Peronist coalition.
This distinction is important, first, because the percentage matches almost exactly the outcome of that ballot, and second, it allows us to see The fissures in the electorate that accompanied Peronism On that occasion in the face of the labor reform proposed by Miley, which in turn shines a light Alert for current driving of CGT.
Labor reform: How many people support the changes, according to the poll
The survey covered a total of 1,150 cases in 24 jurisdictions in the country and collected responses through an online questionnaire indicating various trends, from the level of approval of the Miley administration (which was 39.4%) to concern about the race between salaries and inflation. But the chapter on labor market reform stood out in terms of its responses.
More than half of those surveyed supported labor market reform
First, the survey showed this 55% of those polled “agree with amending labor laws,” while 38.9% expressed their opposition and 6.9% did not specify. Among Miley’s voters, support for the initiative reached 87.9%, but the surprise came with those who elected Massa in 2023, where 17.8% supported the reform.
This is an interesting fact because the Kirchnerian movement supposedly embodies the total rejection of the project – even though in Congress they are preparing their own proposal rather than a strategy to vote against it – and because the CGT has been in a state of war in the face of the project to which they attribute a “lack of consensus”, i.e. dialogue with the unions.
The negative image of unions is quite high even among Peronist voters
In this sense, another result of the Zentrix survey, which directly affects them, was even worse. he 63.9% of those surveyed had a “bad” or “very bad” image of unions, which was accepted by only 15.1%, while 20.9% gave them a “fair” rating. But also among Peronist voters in 2023, negative opinion reached 30.5%.
Collective agreements by sector or by company?: key government survey data
The survey then inquired about some points that could appear in the final draft that Miley will send to Congress or that are known to be topics that the government would at least like to amend. One of them has a relationship Collective labor agreementsThis is an issue that is already aggravating the dispute between Casa Rosada and CGT.
Project Miley will aim to end the call The “superactivity” of agreements. This allows the framework agreements for each clause to automatically remain in force after they expire. The government wants to suppress them in favor of modernizing them, since many of them date back to the 1970s, and at the same time promotes it Negotiations are, ultimately, by the company.
Collective agreements by sector are preferred over company-specific agreements
The survey asked how to discuss collective agreements and gave options. 35.5% of those consulted considered that the problem should be solved “by sector (as is currently the case)”, while 30.8% felt that the sector as well as the region of the country should be taken into account. Meanwhile, the alternative of defining it “by company” received support of only 20.6%.
This means that The mechanism favored by the government – which generates a lot of expectations about the final formulation of the project – is not the most popular choice today By employees, even despite the bad image of unions, which are responsible for negotiating collective agreements that set salary limits and work patterns for each sector of the economy.
Although the issue of collective agreements is what most worries the CGT, which anticipates the risk that the reform pushed by Milley will leave unions on the sidelines of sectoral negotiations, the poll shines more warning lights on unions than on the government, at a time when the center is preparing for a pushback.
The image of unions, the rejection of compulsory quotas, and the problem of Peronism
In addition to asking about collective bargaining agreements, the Zentrix survey also surveyed opinions about Mandatory union contributionIt is a topic whose discussion is sparking anger within the CGT and which the ruling party is threatening to bring up for discussion, either as part of labor reform or as a separate law.
For the vast majority of those surveyed, union contributions should not be mandatory.
When asked about If they agreed that “union dues are voluntary” and not mandatory as they currently are, 67.5% said yes, and only 17.8% said they were against it. By discriminating against respondents according to what they voted for in 2023, another surprise emerged for Peronism, as 41.4% of supporters approved of Massa’s candidacy. Although union contributions are not obligatory, but voluntary.
In this way, the survey revealed The scale of the crisis that Peronism is experiencing. It is no longer just a matter of accepting or rejecting figures like Cristina Kirchner, Axel Kiselov or Sergio Massa, but rather a wide range of personalities. A set of ideas that seem outdated Compared to what employees think today, the dynamic of it Pulls unions down.
According to the survey, the majority demand of unions is to modernize them
In addition to the bad image that casts a shadow over trade unionism, the survey also showed that… 61.3% believed that unions should “renew and modernize all their powers.” Only 18.3% believe that it should be “completely dismantled” and 13% that its power or influence should be “reduced,” meaning that criticism weighs more heavily on the leadership than the practice of union organizing itself.
But in the end the poll showed that when discussing Repair work What will you send? Javier Miley For Congress, public opinion will be guided much more by the concrete changes proposed by the bill than by rhetoric opposing it. Unionswhich finds little support in some aspects, e.g Mandatory contributionsand something more in others, such as the case Collective agreements.